A few beautiful things I saw yesterday.

 What qualifies for one piece of cake at Café Milano. Fantastically huge.

 Two discoveries at The Berkeley Bowl - one of my favorite cheeses from last year, and mountains of produce worthy of a Thai market. Including rambutan! (a fruit I have only seen once since Thailand-  not pictured here, since I ate all of them. Seriously.)

 Two lovely magnets at the house of the kids I was watching.

 The note my former guitar student placed next to my bed last night, and a tall and fancy glass of water - while I was talking with her parents once they got home, she dashed downstairs, made the guest bed and put all of this there (including mints on the pillows) without my noticing. I was so touched I had tears in my eyes. (Do you see the math symbols on the card??)

The Pictures (As Promised)

 During breakfast...

 Playing pool...

 Waiting outside...

 The lovely Erin and myself.

 Emmalena, another wonderful math major.

 The class of 2013!

Hihi...

One of the articles I have to read for Film Music this week is entitled "A Woman Scored"! Ach, music humor... :)

Is it May yet?

I'm sitting in my favorite café in Berkeley - Café Milano. It's becoming a Saturday tradition that Erin and I come here on the Mills Shuttle and sit for several hours while we try to make a dent in our weekly freighter-load of homework. I just finished about 120 pages of a book for my "Race, Sexuality, and the State" class - I like to do the reading for the whole week instead of just for Monday on the weekends, because otherwise between Monday and Wednesday I'm facing sixty pages of reading that - along with algebra homework, going to the gym, tutoring, etc. - I do not have time for. But that does mean that I force my brain through a lot words on the weekend. 120 pages of sentences like:

"In this melding of household status, racial purity, and transactional rights to property and contract, the concept of normativity was deployed as an anti-democratic tactic to restrain the viability of the border intimacies forged by heterogeneous association." (Stranger Intimacy by Nayan Shah, p. 125)

 As you can imagine, my brain is rather tired after all that. But what I really wanted to write to you guys about today was Convocation. It was fantastic.

We went to the free breakfast that I mentioned and met up with a few other friends. After a while (since we had gotten there a bit early), we were done eating but nothing was happening yet, so the four of us (Erin and myself along with Carly ((a math friend)) and Karis ((a friend of Carly's)) ) decided to go and play a game of pool while we waited for the actual events to begin. The room with the pool table is right next to the room where breakfast was being served, so we could hear through the wall when someone made an announcement about lining up to start the ceremony. We walked back around to the main door to see what was going on and ended up standing at what was the beginning of the line of "the class of 2013".  I was right in the front and eventually, a lady who knew what was going on instructed me to start following her and so I did! We walked across the meadow in the middle of our campus and waited as everything was being organized. In the meantime, I met up and joked with more friends (there will be pictures!) and then we heard the music start playing and we were lead to our seats.

As all of the graduating seniors filed into the seats saved for us, there were people sitting around us - younger students as well as some family members who had come to see the ceremony. They cheered as we came in and we cheered as the faculty filed in (in their amazing academic robes... wow.) and then we cheered even harder as the visiting Mills alumni came in. They walked holding banners that showed the year in which they graduated from Mills, and do you know what? There was one graduate from the class of 1942 - a single old woman, marching proudly with her banner and going to sit in the front row. There were several from the class of 1947, and then some from '52, '72, '82 and '92 -- and the biggest contingent was from '62, since this year those graduates are being welcomed in to the Golden Girls club, coming to their 50th reunion. 

After that, the actual program started. Speeches by people in student government, some by the Provost of the college, a bit from the President of the college, etc.  And it was interesting and even funny! Awards were presented to some students as well as some faculty, including Dr. Burke, my film professor this semester and Christian Marouby, French professor and my adviser during my first three semesters as well as the one who supervised all of my study abroad applications last year. Both of them mean so much to me and both of them are retiring after this year, and I had tears in my eyes as they stood up to receive their awards.

I just looked across the table at Erin here and we were talking about how much fun Convocation has been and she summed up my feelings rather well (as well as her own). "You know," she said, "It made me feel very proud to be a part of Mills, which is not something I feel often." I couldn't agree more. I don't often feel like a "Mills Woman", as the phrase goes - and I don't often think that it is important to feel so, I don't notice the community much. But with generations of graduates, my fellow students, and professors who have guided me these past years all around me, I felt so very much like I belonged. And I sang our Alma Mater with more conviction than I ever thought I would.

However, one of the consequences of parading around in a graduation robe and cheering with the fellow seniors is simply this: I want to graduate NOW. I feel like I already have! Convincing myself after that to take off the robe, go back to my room and continue studying for my algebra exam yesterday was no easy feat. Convocation is kind of a tease, but it's one I'm very glad I was a part of.

There are several pictures I would like to show you from Convocation, but the internet in this café isn't fast enough for that, so I will post them later this evening or tomorrow.  Be excited!

Convocation

So, I am convoting this morning. Or convocating. Or convocationing. Whatever the verb form of Convocation is, that's what I'm doing this morning - what we, the graduating class of 2013 are doing.

Basically, Convocation is the official start to the 2012-13 academic year where the College president makes a speech, lots of people are invited and are encouraged to wear their class colors and the seniors, which includes me, wear their robes that they will wear at Graduation (but we don't get to wear our cool hats yet - we aren't actually graduating today -- though that would be awesome). The seniors are honored during the ceremony and before that we get free food (yes!) and - I dunno. After that, for the rest of the day, we feel awesome because we're seniors?  I think that's the plan, and I am so excited.

Whoa. So, I just put on my robe so that I could give you guys a picture of me in it, but first of all, with the material that the robe is made of, my hair became very staticy and I now need to go and get it under control. Second of all, I can't hold my phone far enough away from me to take a picture. I will make sure that some pictures are taken during the course of the morning! Maybe I'll even use a camera and not my phone. Crazy!

As for the rest of the day, well, today is my first Algebra exam. And I'm excited. The worst part of exams is the days leading up to them - when you think you should study, you don't know how much, when is it alright to stop studying, etc. As soon as you get handed the exam paper, you can breathe a sigh of relief. Yes, maybe there's a problem that you're unsure of, but the mystery is gone. After an hour, it'll be over. Plus, the weirdo that I am, I kind of enjoy the mental exercise of not being able to use notes, old homework, the internet or anything to answer questions. My brain likes it. That doesn't mean I always do well - I have this tendency to be, well... hasty. That's my goal this year: don't be hasty on exams. I have lost so many silly points on exams over the years because I DON'T THINK CLEARLY at that time. I'm not panicking by any means - I'm chill and happy, but - I overlook things. Things that I know how to do. So, I'll do my best not to do that this year. Starting today!

Alright, I should go get ready! :) See you later.

Do you have a spare half hour while doing the dishes?

I encourage you to listen to this BBC radio program.  It's hosted by Stephen Fry (one of my favorites, as you know) and is a discussion of what it's like to be gay while in prison - lots of inmates and former inmates are interviewed, and Stephen (who did his own stint in jail when he was just a wee lad) tells a bit about his own experience. It's really worth a listen.

Memories!

I was just in the math building on campus (called CPM ((Computer Science, Physics and Math)), in case I call it that sometime in the future) and I saw a horde of youngsters (okay, freshmen, but seriously - they are starting to look young to me) queuing around the door to CPM 101 at 9:55 in the morning - I know that scene. That's the 10:00 Calculus class. Every fall semester, there is a Calculus I class at 10 in the morning.  I remember when I was part of that crowd - I remember my first few days of Calculus I first semester, back when I thought I was going to study Anthropology - I stood in that bunch and watched older students talk about math that I didn't understand. Now, I happen to know that they just had their first exam, those little students - I'm now in the group of students that runs review sessions for them, who sit and proctor the exams. Circle of life, circle of studies - you get the picture. I was so suddenly nostalgic, it was kind of crazy. I'm kind of starting to feel like a senior.

Thoughts During Film Class

I had quite a few things swirling through my mind during the three-hour film lecture yesterday, some related to what we were talking about, some not.  I thought that this morning I could give you a quick spin through those musings.  (By the way, one way to assure that one will be healthy again is to apparently just make a doctor's appointment - by the time it rolled around, I was feeling healthy and didn't need it anymore! :) All is well.)

1. So, the first thing I have to say is not an original question, nor is it one to which I can significantly contribute, considering all the philosophers and other thinkers who have explored this same thing. We were talking about a few films last night which are indisputably works of art and even considered some of the best films made for the time that they were created - in terms of editing, cinematography, set design, etc. A lot of these films that were so "incredible" also happen to be the most reprehensible in nature - whether it's the pure propaganda of The Battleship Potemkin or the blatant racism of Birth of a Nation. My head took a slightly different thought path, curving away and connecting with some of the discussions in my Women's Studies class as well. What exactly is racism or prejudice? Is a thought racist? Let me rephrase: is a thought, when it comes unbidden to a mind ( as so many thoughts do, we all know it), inherently prejudiced? More importantly, is the mind that holds that thought prejudiced for this sudden creation of a thought? Sometimes, I think our brains like to produce things, thoughts, ideas that we know are wrong/stupid/impractical or prejudiced -- like the desire to throw my Algebra book across the room at the person who can't seem to think with her mouth closed. Does that mean that I'm a violent person? Does that mean that I am intolerant of people? I don't think so. We cannot be so harshly judged by the knee-jerk reactions of our brains. But - that's a difficult line to draw.  For a little refreshing frankness on the subject, please have a listen to this song. But believe me, I know the subject demands seriousness as well. But we can't take everything too seriously - we're humans, for goodness' sake.

2. The second thing I wanted to mention is something that will seem quite silly based on the content of the above paragraph. Still, it's something that I never thought about before but that deserves mentioning! We were talking in class last night about a scene in the movie Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) where a clever camera trick involving a mirror with a corner that was just glass and not a mirror at all, a painting, and some actors was able to create a fantastic backdrop - not just for the audience, but for the filmmakers as well, since they didn't have to go back and cut every single frame and make a stencil of where the background would be, shoot film of the backdrop, cut out appropriately sized pieces, and then glue them back to the shots of the action happening in the foreground. Which is, of course, what they had to do before green screens. Two words: Mary Poppins. Yes, that film was from the 60s and some technology had improved, but not when it came to trying to put animated things next to real people. So, watching Mr. Van Dyke dance with penguins? Can you imagine the amount of time that went into that? I am just blown away.

3. We have reached the point in our timeline in Film class that we've started to discuss the first censorship boards that erupted all over the United States as "pictures" became more and more popular. A few of you may have heard me discuss American film censorship before. If not, get a cup of tea.  No, I promise not to be long-winded. I just have to say that I think it the purest kind of absurdity to allow 12-year-olds to see all the blood and gore of the Lord of the Rings (because it's "fantasy violence") when at the same time, if there had been a single bare bottom in that movie, the rating would have jumped up to R, only for seventeens-and-up, or in the presence of a parent or guardian. Or, a movie like The King's Speech - one that I would have loved to see in high school, in the 14-16 age range. That one was rated R. But don't you know, he SWEARS in that movie. We can't expose our poor children to that. (Admittedly, there is a rather fantastic amount of swearing in one scene of the movie, but our censor doesn't distinguish between types of swearing. In The King's Speech, I swear it's art - not the case in all movies) We see naked bodies in the shower every day. Profanity is a fact of life, just like sex, drugs, and "adult content". I feel like we're raising a nation of know-nothings, here.

The pinnacle of this above discussion came to my knowledge a few weeks ago. Thanks to the brilliant invention of YouTube, I have come to know (through his video-blogs) an author of a series of young adult books. His name is John Green (no, I don't know him personally, I'm one of the thousands that watches his videos, but still) and he was recently recognized for his book The Fault In Our Stars. Having a youtube channel allows this man to give an insight into the writing industry, along with doing lots of other silly things that youtubers do. However, the thing I want to mention to you is about his book Looking for Alaska. The content of the book doesn't matter for this remark. The only thing you need to know is that several of the main characters smoke cigarettes in the novel. The cover of this book in the states has smoke swirling around and underneath the title. Mr. Green informed his viewers over the course of years now that at the beginning, he wanted that smoke by itself on the cover - the intelligent reader can infer cigarettes if they think about what's happening inside the book. But, you must understand (says the industry) - this is a children's book. What if they think the smoke is coming from a cigarette? So they put a candle on the cover. In various vlogs from John Green, we heard about how much he hated the candle. Finally, after a very long time, the candle has been removed. But the fact that that has to be a battle in this country pisses me frankly the hell off.

Do we think teenagers don't think that cigarettes exist? Do we think that they will be under the impression that they don't exist if we don't put them on the covers of our novels? How -- how stupid and blindly impressionable do we think they are? This makes me very, very angry and frankly not all that proud to live here. Who are these young adults going to be in twenty years?

--

Whew! Well, I went for it, I suppose. I really ought to have breakfast and work on my Algebra review sheet (exam this Friday) - I heard rumblings of interest in what we are doing in Algebra. I'll see what I can do this weekend or next week for you on that front.

Also, a final note - we watched a clip from a movie called The Fall last night (I'm sure some of you have heard of it) and since the clip was very short, I don't know much about the movie - but I know a musical piece that they used. It was a piece that was on a cassette tape that I listened to with my sister as a kid, "Beethoven Lives Upstairs" - and I hadn't heard a piece from it in such a long time. Now, thanks to that clip from the movie, I know what one of my favorite classical pieces is called and can finally look it up and listen to it! So I did. Here it is, if you want something beautiful to listen to today.

!!!

This is just one of those mornings. I just caught myself almost running down the hall with the coffee I had put in the microwave because I was so excited to get back to work on my algebra homework. There really are days when my head is more mathy than other days - and there is almost nothing as much fun as working on math on those days. It's like reading a language you didn't know you could read but getting almost immediate proof that you're doing it right.  Plus, what could be more fun than starting to feel healthy after you've been sick for a week? Add to that the fact that Pandora (the online radio website) just got everything right this morning -- if you don't know what it is, Pandora is an online music database. You put in a song or a composer or a band that you enjoy and they figure out all the characteristics that you might like about that song/composer/band and based on that, play other songs for you - you like or dislike them with a button, and over time, a personalized radio station is made. I have worked on one particular channel for a while now, honing exactly the kind of music I want to hear -and today, it's been bloody brilliant.  And, to add the final touch to the morning, my coffee had the perfect bitterness-to-cream ratio. Wonderful!!!!

I put a picture of the Mainz cathedral as the background on my phone, I have things under control for the day, I think I'll be able to exercise today for the first time in a week -- it's just all great. :)  I'm coming back to life!

Lovely stationary, fountain pen, and algebra. Beautiful. :)

:)

I caught myself whistling along to my music this morning while doing some Algebra. That must be a good sign. I think I'll be better soon. :)

A quiet Sunday

I woke up today and I was happy. I hadn't noticed how unhappy I had been the rest of the week until this morning. I mean, I knew that I was sick, but - today, even though I can't breathe, cough sometimes, and have a scratchy throat that makes my voice sound funny, I'm in a really good mood - and am very grateful for that.

With my incredibly low energy yesterday, I also managed to get a whole lot done. I mean look at this - today, I even have the time to properly drink a cup of tea while I write this and I also had the time to do something that I haven't done in ages - write a letter. I wrote a letter to the director of the Middlebury program in Mainz. She was so sweet to all of the students and we had coffee with her about once a month and talked about everything that was going on, and she was always ready to help students if they needed anything. I really wanted to thank her for that and, frankly, I miss her, so I thought a letter was a nice idea. (Plus, with the stationary that was a birthday present from a certain lovely friend of mine, the letter was ten times better)

There is a pretty big hole in my heart where Mainz used to be. This weekend, though, thanks to C and her mother, my German resumé was also completed, which means I can start to look even more seriously at internships for next year. I can't even explain how excited I am!

--

I have to go and do some studying for an Algebra exam now, but I will write again this week, hopefully when I am healthy again!

What it looks like at my office hours.

Overheard conversations.

Apparently, I am just way too happy-go-lucky. I just overheard a conversation about the horrible homophobic and racist nature of Ice Age and that we shouldn't show movies like that to our children. Seriously?

We all know that Disney movies are formulaic and incredibly guy-saves-girl oriented. You're not surprising anyone by pointing that out.

But really, my main problem or point when it comes to these kinds of discussions is this: don't we have better things to do?


-------

For example, I came up with a stunning conversation topic last night: what would onions be like if they didn't have layers?

Think about it. That's the kind of stuff I like to think about.

P.S. I trust that you know I am reasonably intellectual and not as silly as I sometimes seem. Sometimes, I just can't stand the RIDICULOUSNESS of this so-called academia...
P.P.S. I also kind of love academia. Just not that kind of it.

It's complicated.

Where to begin?

First of all, I am still under the weather, despite my optimistic thoughts yesterday. However, I know how my body handles sickness. If I feel the same from day to day, that's a bad sign - now, if I feel crappy one day after another but it's a different kind of crappiness, then I know all is well and it will move through my system. And that is the case right now. No more hugely sore sinuses and headaches - today it is some aches and a sore throat. Tomorrow it'll probably be a cough and then I imagine it will be all gone by the weekend.

Second of all, I really wish I could have tiny teacups here and appropriately-teabags so that in the evenings when I don't really need a cup of tea, I could still have a little one to keep me company while I write my blog entry.  Actually, I don't care. I'll go make a properly sized cup of tea right now. Be right back. :)

-five minute interlude-

Hah.  So, I wrote "five minute interlude" and then - well, Erin came over, there were things to do, the tea water boiled and was forgotten and now, it's Thursday and I'm sitting in the college library. I had saved the beginning of this post as a draft and I think now is the right time to finish it.

In case you were wondering, I am still sick. No doubt about it. I think it's making the rounds on the campus - I haven't had a class yesterday or today in which all of the students were there. The good thing is that it's not all that severe. I  certainly am uncomfortable and unhappy, but it's more of a severe cold than an actual sickness. So, don't worry!  I'm going to be more realistic today and NOT go to the gym today - yes, you may think me crazy, but I did go to my cardio kickboxing class yesterday... I feel like that may have been a bad idea. Sometimes, I am quite dumb.

Anyways, this morning I was in a pretty bad place. I woke up and was so frustrated that a) I had overslept and b) I wasn't feeling completely healthy like I wanted to. C calmed me down through a few well-timed text messages and I am very grateful. She gave me the courage to just start my day even though it seemed like an unconquerable obstacle so early in the day.

So, I went and printed out everything that I need to read for my classes next week (I feel like I'm killing forests single-handedly as I do it, but I also know that I'm just signing myself up for a constant weekend-long headache if I try to read upwards of 75 pages on a computer screen for class...) and then spent a good half-hour prepping for my Film Music class where I was supposed to make a presentation today.

This week we were presenting individually movies in which we thought the music was implemented well, but also music that we enjoyed listening to out of the movie context. I chose the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, knowing very well that it was extremely blockbuster-y and mainstream (something you need to be aware of on a campus like this one). I did quite  bit of research and spent a lot of time last week watching, listening, watching, listening and taking lots of notes. I found a lot of interesting information and was quite proud of what I had done - there is more to film music than it "sounding good" and "fitting with the mood" of a movie.

But, one has to be prepared for certain things in the SF Bay Area in California. One of those things is hipsters. Do you know what hipsters are? Does anybody? The definition changes depending on who you ask.

I refuse to use this blog to rant about people because I know they won't read it. I won't do that. I will say, however, for your own edification, that my definition of "hipster" encompasses those individuals who seem to think themselves morally superior due to their rejection of everything mainstream. This attitude can manifest itself in clothing choice, food choice, music choice, etc. A good percentage of my film music class borders on hipsterdom if not living within the boundaries completely.

(Last bit, then I swear I'll stop. How many hipsters does it take to screw in a lightbulb?-------
It's a really cool number... you've probably never heard of it.)

I'm not saying that to put anyone down . I'm only explaining because without that, it doesn't make sense to think that anyone in my generation could either not have seen Pirates of the Caribbean or be so incredibly dismissive of it after having seen it. (I maintain that those who have NOT seen it have made a point to not see it, just like those who never joined Facebook. It can be done, but it's not that you just "didn't get around to it". You made a point of NOT doing it.)

During my presentation, I made very clear that I think of that movie as what it really is: mainstream, blockbuster, formalist (thank you, Film theory!) entertainment. I don't try to pretend that it is art cinema or anything. But I maintain that if you let it, you will be entertained for two hours and probably laugh a few times. Because that's what it's supposed to do - not change your life. And the music reflects that. It's classic epic film music - but I thought there were some things in the music that usually get overlooked (6/8 time signature that fits very well with the rocking of a boat on the ocean as well as the slightly haphazard idea of Jack's character, etc.). Let's just say that half of the class giggled as they watched scenes and were excited to hear a film that they liked analyzed, and the other half sat back in their chairs and smirked. "It's good garbage, but garbage." said one of them.

Even my professor called it "Mainstream nondescript crap", agreeing with most of the musical critics of the soundtrack who say that it could be used for any film that had any kind of adventure theme, from outer space to a police drama. I was just a little bit hurt, but you know, I think I did a good presentation. And I know there are more "intellectual" films and more "intellectual" music but I was supposed to pick one that I LIKED, and I did that. The professor even encouraged me. I'm actually proud that it didn't upset me more. And half the class was on my side.

That discussion above brings me to another quick point I want to make before I go to my office hours. I have already discussed at length some of the differences between college in the states and Uni in Germany.  We've talked about the fact that my fellow math students here only know about a third of the entire math knowledge that our German counterparts do, but we can explain it much better than any of them can. I think even the idea of "understanding" in a class is different. I remember doing a problem with a friend of mine at the university last year and finishing it, getting the correct answer, and frowning at it. My friend asked me what was wrong, and I explained that I still didn't understand the problem. She looked very confused and told me that I shouldn't worry, I could obviously do them right. But that's not understanding to me, nor is it to my other classmates here. We sit in class and listen to explanations three or four times, ask the professor to rephrase them until not only can we do the problem, but we can explain why. We know what thought goes into which step, we could teach someone else to do it. But that takes time. And that's why we're behind if you look at the big picture. I can't decide which is better.

But I digress. What I wanted to talk about relates to music class this morning. The fact is that in a system that supports the kind of individual attention that liberal arts colleges like Mills, Allegheny and Middlebury do, there is a personal relationship between the students and the professors. For most students, I think this is a good thing. You go and you have discussions, you get personal attention and aid and professors can encourage you to do better in a way that a phantom professor who doesn't know your name at the front of an auditorium of 500 students can't. But there is another side to it. Th professors know you. Especially your advisors who see you through all of your years at school. They know you and then, the emotional pressure starts to build. You don't want to disappoint them.

For some students, I think this is necessary. If they didn't care what the professor thought, they wouldn't feel motivated at all. Some need that support to give them the drive to try and do better. I'm closer to the other side of the spectrum. Especially when I'm emotionally compromised (i.e. sick, stressed, etc.) I can get completely overwhelmed by this emotional responsibility to my professors. Will they be insulted if I skip class? Will they find out that I could have gone to class yesterday but that I didn't so that I could hopefully be healthier tomorrow? I can't do badly on the exam - not because my grades can take it but because they will be disappointed in me!

It's very stressful. I've never noticed it so clearly before, but that's what stepping back for a year can do to you.

A very quick memo before I go to sleep.

I am under the weather today, but thanks to a girlfriend who really knows me and knows when I'm being ridiculous even when I don't know it myself, I didn't go to one of my classes today, and thanks to that- thanks to her- I think I will be fine again tomorrow. :)

Also, look what the day presented: college bathroom art at its finest.
With that, I bid you goodnight!

Sometimes the college life rocks.

8 a.m., drinking a cup of coffee, writing an essay about injustice, and dancing along to Die Toten Hosen, Lady Gaga, and Spring Awakening (with my headphones in - not everyone wakes up at 6:45, and I don't want to awaken those lazybones with my music - so I'm lip-synching and having a blast).

Though I may whine about the workload at times, there is something quite blessed about having only one obligation for four years - learning. That's pretty damn incredible. True, I wish I could get paid to learn as opposed to paying to learn, but still. As a 21 year old, this is all I have known in my life - being a student. It's been 16 years since I started in this school system and by now, I'm pretty good at being a student. And I'm starting to get nostalgic about it before it's even ended. I'll live it up this year, don't worry.

--

P.S. I still remember the time when I was about 12 years old and talking to an older girl who I thought was so cool, a friend of my sister, and I mixed up the words "lethargic" and "nostalgic". Every time I write either one of those words, I remember!

A Walk Around Mills

After breakfast this morning, Erin and I took a stroll through the campus and I wanted to share some of the resulting photos with all of you. You'll see them at the end of this post.

Besides going on walks, I have spent most of my weekend doing homework in addition to going out to a sushi restaurant last night with Erin to visit our friend Shivangi, who was in town for her birthday. Shivangi was a student here at Mills and did a program that Mills has with USC (University of Southern California in LA) where she did three years of a mostly math major at Mills and then transferred to USC where in two years, she will get her MA in Engineering. She is one of those people whom I did not know very well in my time here until the very end of my sophomore year - right before I was leaving for Germany. We started to get very close and hang out and have a blast together, and then I left for my year abroad - which was coincidentally her last year at Mills. Now I'm back here, and she's in LA. She is also one of those fantastic people who said to me during sophomore year "You're going to be in Germany? I'm totally coming to visit!" - and then DID.  I'm sure I wrote about her visit when it happened. 

The point is, it was her birthday and her family lives up in this part of California, so she came up for a visit and we went to her birthday dinner with friends last night. It was so good to see her again and meet some of her other friends - and to eat sushi and have a generally merry time. It is just too easy to get boxed into the studying life, the one that has youtube as its only escape - but I've already gone into that on other days.  The point is, I think I really needed a night out, and last night was fan-damn-tastic.

Today, the main break I took was to go to the gym and listen to more of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo- still as engaging as before, though very cruelly tantalizingly talking about sub-zero weather in Nowheresville in Sweden when I was boiling on the exercise bike. Now, Erin is chillin' in my room in the taco chair and I decided to take a break from imploding my brain trying to think of a topic for a response paper in my Women's Studies class and to update all of you.

Also, this week I may be doing a presentation in my Film Music class on just why it is that the music in the film Pirates of the Caribbean worked as well as it did. Only a few students will get to/have to (depending on how you feel!) present in class, depending on who the professor picks, so I will let you know.

Now I should do some more academic work, but here are those pictures. :)

(Shiv is the one in the tiger-striped shirt next to me, and in front of Erin (who is next to me) is Shivangi's sister, Neha)

A few shots from behind the dining hall...

An old theater place behind the art building, near the dorm I was in my freshman year.

 The vines inside that structure above...

 An old building whose rear entrance we discovered today.

 The path parallel to the main road on campus that leads to the swimming pool and track.

 Amazing fractal leaves!

Quick note

Also, any time that I grumble about not wanting to go do something (for example, attend a Math Club meeting or another college event, etc.), now Erin always comes over to me all smug and says "But EMILY, your BLOG said that you were going to DO these things now..." :)  Good thing she's here to keep me honest!

How much work and how much play?

Good morning. I'm starting off my Saturday in a way that I never thought I would - sitting in bed while watching The Battleship Potemkin, since I couldn't stay for the showing of it during class on Thursday. However, in my film music class on Tuesday, we talked about this film and watched the horrifically painful scene of the Odessa Steps from start to finish. Now, to make this all even more ironic, while doing the reading for my film music class last Monday, the author discussed the Odessa Steps scene at great length, and I had never seen it - so, I went and searched on youtube and watched it. If you are keeping track, that means that when I started watching this movie today, I had already seen the Odessa Steps scene twice within the week, so as soon as it started for the third time around, I decided to use the time to write a blog entry, and here I am.

This week was an intense one. We had an algebra assignment that we discussed in class - down to the solutions of about half of the problems and after that, we were to turn it in the next day. Even with the solutions to half of them, it still took me three hours to complete. That assignment sort of set the tone for the week. However, I've also had a great deal of fun this week. Last night we made carrot cake cupcakes with a friend, I went to Rockridge and had coffee at my favorite cafe in the area that I hadn't been to in over a year, and there was a lot of hanging around in the evenings with friends.  Erin and I took advantage of the lovely weather the other night as you can see below:

 And, after making cupcakes last night, I was convinced to try on and walk around in the tallest pair of shoes I have ever seen - and I didn't wobble even once. I was quite proud of myself! (this picture doesn't show the inch that was also under my toes - these shoes made me TALL. Seriously.)

I would love to stay here and keep writing, but unfortunately, homework calls. I have to finish Potemkin and then decide where to go from there. Oh so many choices. I'll keep you posted if anything else exciting happens!

Lazy Creatures

Hey.  I'm having a thought, here.

This thought hit me when I was starving and covered in sweat, just finishing up at the gym before going to dinner with my friend Erin. I was standing in the locker room underneath the gym and staring into space (the way I do when I'm physically exhausted) and was tuned completely in to my iPod. At that moment, I was listening to a song from the musical Spring Awakening - but I was listening to a song from the German version of the musical. I had the German soundtrack before I went to Mainz last year, but I never thought I'd actually get the chance to see it performed (I had seen the English one in Pittsburgh about two years before). However, while I was studying at the Uni Mainz, the theater department put on a production of it, and I went to see it. It was one of the most stunning things I saw last year - and I think I mentioned it in this blog.

But the point of this isn't the musical Spring Awakening - it isn't about music or musicals in general, not about being in Mainz. No, this was just something that I've noticed in me and in a lot of other people these days. When I heard that the university was going to do Spring Awakening (called Frühlings Erwachen in German - the musical actually was originally a play written in German in 1891 that was adapted to a Broadway musical in 2006), I was so excited - but I had to really get myself to go and buy tickets. Not because they were expensive, but because it's "effort". And when the day rolled around for us (C and me) to go see the show, I think there was even a bit of grouchiness in my mind because we weren't going to have "an evening at home".  And what happened? It was positively brilliant that night - the show, the conversations afterwards, a look into a world of students that I had never met at the Uni before (no math kids in Theater shows - we don't have the time. ;-) ). But I had to make myself go to the theater at an affordable price only about fifteen minutes away from my apartment with my fiancee, for goodness' sake!

This idea of laziness, of wanting that idea of a "night in" seems to be more and more prevalent these days. I catch myself thinking it all the time - and true, you can justify it, or at least try to. "If I go out, then I'm gonna spend money - because no one goes out without getting something to eat or drink these days, and that can get expensive." "If I want to go and see San Francisco, well, I don't have a car, so I have to take the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) and that costs money." "I could go, but I also have some homework to do." And blah, blah, blah!


Understand, please, that I am writing these frustrated "blah blah blah"s from an insider's perspective - in fact, I probably wouldn't find it so frustrating if I didn't do this myself. The point is, I want to try and do this less often. Honestly, if I just look at the situation - if one just looks at the situation - good grief, how many nights at home does a person need?

Yes, it's nice to have nothing planned, but really, what will you do? If you're my age, probably spend way too much time on facebook (one of the reasons I left it, though for that, my new internet hub is youtube), play some stupid games, watch a movie (maybe with a friend, maybe not) -- and just, you know, hang around.

Don't get me wrong - hanging around is a positively beautiful thing. I think, on the whole, we humans don't do enough nothing in our lives. But the thing is, we do a lot of stuff that is worse than nothing. For me, doing nothing and just "hanging out" is a proper activity and you should do it with some umph. Know that's what you're doing. Having plans to maybe do some research for that one paper and then ending up mindlessly scrolling through youtube cooking videos (I'm a repeat offender) - that's not hanging out. Hanging out makes you feel relaxed and wholesome afterwards. Hanging out is sitting with a friend on a bed (if you're in a dorm), on your couch (if you have an apartment or house), or even on the grass outside - or going for a walk, and just seeing where the conversation takes you. Politics, family, love, music, for goodness' sake, even your classes! You talk and let yourself talk. No plans. It just happens. After an evening like that, you've learned something. Maybe about yourself, maybe about the person you were talking to. And if you're more of a solitary person or just a social person who needs some actual time alone, DO something with it. Hang out by yourself! Read a book while taking a bath! Lie on your bed and watch how your thoughts make circles in your own head! Just be present in the nothingness.  I'm sick of those afternoons of youtube and internet wanderings that take up an afternoon but ultimately leave me feeling hollow inside.

So, to sum up, I want to take the opportunity to DO more things (sometimes at the small expense of that paper or my wallet) and when I decide to NOT do things, I want to do it on purpose, I don't want that emptiness of an evening to just happen to me.

The good thing about this plan is that it yields almost immediate results. This past weekend, I was on campus and planning to get a lot of homework done (which did happen) but I was invited to speak on a panel about being a Peer Tutor to lots of other students who are peer tutoring for the first time this semester. (Basically, being a Peer Tutor means you are a helper for one or two classes during a semester and you have an office hour each week in which students can come to you and ask questions. Sort of a person between the professor and the students. If they want, students can make appointments with you outside of your office hours. You get paid for peer tutoring from the college - it's a work-study job. I'm tutoring this semester for Real Analysis ((which I took back in the Stone Age of sophomore year)) and Abstract Algebra - yes, even though I'm in the class myself! My professor believes in me. :) )

I agreed to go and talk to the new students, thinking that the poor kids I'd be talking to wouldn't pay attention at all because they were already being forced to attend a Saturday seminar that no one wanted to go to. I went down and sat myself at the table in front of the sixty or so students with one other peer tutor (who was quite a bit older than most of the students, so I really did feel like a peer, which was a good thing) and told them a bit about my experience tutoring and answered some questions from the newbies.

Now, several good things came of this, quite immediately. 1) I got paid for my time there. 2) I got to spend an hour talking in front of people (which I like to do) about something that I really care about, namely teaching (which I really like to do!).  3) In the two days since then, I have had a stranger come up to me each day and tell me that they were really glad that I spoke there and said that it really was good advice and made them feel more ready about tutoring themselves.

How awesome is THAT?

Anyways, this whole laziness thing is just something that I see in myself and others a lot, and even if it doesn't change overnight (there are very few things that do), I want to be aware of it. Hope I made my point well!

At long last...

Carson found his new home in my dorm room!

Beauty of the Math Meld

Yesterday, I got together with five other students in my Abstract Algebra class to work on homework together. Some of the people in that group are in my year and one of them has been in every single math class that I've taken at Mills - she was also abroad last year (in Australia) and we had a fun time comparing the US versus Non-US ways of teaching math at a college level. But besides having a lot of fun (working only about 2/3 of the time, the rest of the time telling stories and generally goofing off), the amazing thing was to be sitting next to and working with a girl who I taught in my Calculus II workshop when I was a TA sophomore year when she was a first year.

Besides that time, I had never worked with her - it's been odd to see my students again now that I'm back since  - when they were my students - they were freshmen and now are juniors (a big leap in college, at least it feels like it to me) and some of them did enough math while I was gone to be in classes with me, which is rather fantastic. So this girl is one of those cases. However, that's not the point. The point is that yesterday, we were sitting at one corner of the table and I saw her just as another student in the class - until I asked if I could run one of my proofs by her to see if I had made any silly errors.

And our brains just clicked together. I don't know how many if any math folks are reading this right now, but even if you do something other than math, you must have felt at some point that amazing clarity when you start to work with someone who thinks the same way you do. And yesterday, being just at the beginning of this algebra class and trying to prove lots of, quite frankly, extremely abstract things - to ask a few questions and realize the brain of the person next to you is running parallel to yours and at the exact same speed - it was beautiful. We kept always paying attention to the one tiny detail that the other person had forgotten and in that way, blasting through the problems and not only finishing them, but understanding them. I've met very few people who I could work with in that way. I have lots of math friends and I love to talk with them about math and even to work together, but that kind of working together is also a solitary activity because the way my brain thinks about math isn't the way that they do - we often solve things in completely different ways and still have a great time comparing the answers and processes, but it's different. I met one person in Germany who also had a twin math brain - I unfortunately only found that out while we were studying for a final together - we happened to have one friend in common in the class but had never managed to work together as a group before. Those three days before the final, there were these fantastic moments between him and me - finishing the other person's math sentences, having realizations about the problems at exactly the same time, even announcing that we needed a cup of coffee at the exact same time.

That guy's name was Thomas and I don't know if I'll ever see him again in my life, but when we had those moments, I realized how fun it could be to work with someone like that. But he wasn't in any of my classes the second semester in Germany and I worked instead with other people that I liked but - it's not the same, but I didn't care. The point is, I wasn't expecting it at all yesterday, and it was quite the lovely surprise!

(Also, this wasn't at all a subtle happening - everyone else at the table yesterday was watching and giggling at us, making fun of the "serious math bonding" that was happening. :) ) I'm just excited that I found first of all, this great group of friends for my math class senior year and second of all, this other student -- all right at the beginning of the semester. I feel like math this year will be fun. :)

I might have to write an entry about what we're doing in Algebra these days - I have no idea if you'll find it interesting or not, but guess what? This is my blog. I might just do it anyway. :)

Dr. Caligari

Hey!

So, this last week of classes positively defined liberal arts education for me. I went to my Film Music class where we talked about silent movies and the music in them, how music works in a film - does it aid the plot, does it give signs that the rest of a scene doesn't give, is it superfluous or necessary, is it as important as the dialogue, why does the composer use specific instruments, etc. Then, in the next Film Music lecture, we had woman visiting from a local orchestra (called the Club Foot Orchestra) who has done lots of composing work for silent films, from cartoons to more serious films, plus some work with dancers, etc.

In between those two classes, I had one Film lecture during which we talked about silent film and whether music was indeed necessary for film - I never thought about it before. I assumed silent films HAD to have music. Not the case! (In fact, one of the original reasons that there was music was because the old projectors in movie houses were so loud the audience couldn't stand the click-clacking noise, and they needed something to cover it up. But the music that was played didn't always fit the feature - they were live musicians with their own desires - played what they felt like in front of the screen for a bit and eventually got up and left when they felt like it! Often in the middle of the film! Not really what I picture when I think about the early days of cinema...) We also talked about a documentary called The Bronze Screen which is about representations of Hispanic people in Hollywood films (through many eras - the dumb, dangerous bandit, the lawless folks from below the border - women with loose morals, fiery tempered men with twitchy trigger fingers -- all the way to the Latin Lover era ((after too many South American theaters boycotted films that used the tired stereotypes)), then things lapsed back into old habits and they became the villains of Mehico again. But then, near WWII, we wanted to be friends with our neighbors in a serious way, so the government encouraged Hollywood to be much more nice about those folks south of the border, and that's when American audiences came to know the Latin Lovers once again but all in a land of beautiful escapist glory, ruffled dresses, music every night, men dancing with roses in their teeth and women who knew what they wanted and could seduce you with their dark eyes.)

After that class, I went to my "Race, Sexuality and the State" class where we're mostly still on the Race part - and all of the information I had gained from the documentary came zooming back into my mind. After that, my second Film class of the week happened where we watched The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - a silent film from 1919 with a score composed and performed by The Club Foot Orchestra. !!!

I have to ramble about Caligari a bit just because I was so blown away by the film. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, actually) is a prime example of German Expressionism. Expressionism is a trend that was also present in the other arts  - a movement to not necessarily portray the world as it really is in paintings, photographs, etc. Expressionism brought in the idea that the artist's vision could alter reality, that things could look maybe strange or unreal because it was one person's perception of reality that was being shown. The first people to ever bring this style into cinema were German, which is why the movement is called German Expressionism. In Caligari, the Expressionist trends are marvelously clear - everything was shot on an indoor set with geometrically shaped furniture, actors had incredibly dark eye makeup and faces that were painted white to emphasize the difference in the shades, shadows were painted on the set instead of being caused by real light because the creators wanted them to be a certain way - a cleric of the state in the movie is placed on a chair that holds him five feet above the ground to represent his position in comparison to those around him, etc. It is the first example of a horror film and first film credited with having a twist ending. I won't ruin it though it's hard not to, but boy, go watch it. Please. (it's on instant view on Netflix!)

Now, for someone of my generation, one of the most intriguing things was when the movie started and I saw such images as:

I felt myself getting the chills in a familiar way - all of us students were looking around, unsure. We started whispering to one another -- "Doesn't that -- doesn't it look like a Tim Burton film???" The professor heard us, smiled and said "Yes, Tim Burton. That man has made his life from German Expressionism!"

To have that film in front of us and that kind of stylistic intensity, plot twisting and just damn creepiness was incredible. So far, so good with these class choices this semester.

A look at Mills

 

Above, a shot looking down from the hill where the dining hall is, and below looking at the dining hall itself.

 Farther down the hill from the dining hall, looking towards the rest of campus.

 Classic California beauty - dry-weather trees and bright sunshine. :)

 A look across Toyon Meadow, in the center of campus. To the left is Adam's Plaza, where our café, college bookstore, and post office are located.

 A look down the steep path leading into campus from my dorm - this was taken last night at about 9:30, when I was coming back from film class.

Two Important Things

1.) Listening to Holst's The Planets while drinking my coffee and doing some reading for class at 8:00 is a great way to start the day. I feel like everything I do is massively important with this score. :)

2.) Thanks to film class yesterday, I learned the word "somnambulist". More on that later!

A few noteworthy things!

1) In Trader Joe's last week (fantastic alternative earthy-crunchy fun grocery store, if you don't know it) with Erin, we stopped in an aisle as we heard the loudspeaker say "Excuse me-- um, if you left your dog parked outside, it just got loose, so... go find your dog. Thank you."

2) The sign on the outside of the film room last night:

 Our super fancy computer labs IN EACH DORM. That computer screen is the size of four of my heads. Head. Just- wow!

 Aaaand - the huge course reader! Also, my hair is long enough to put in a ponytail now. :)

Survived the first week (albeit not a full one)

Thanks to the scheduling system here at Mills (which is exactly the same in this respect to that of my high school), or semester starts with a three day week (beginning on a Wednesday), followed by a four day week (because of Labor Day) and then, after we've warmed up our studying muscles, we get a five day week.  Since we started on a Wednesday and today is Wednesday, I have had all of my classes more than once so far and feel a bit more like I'm in the semester. In fact, I feel quite assimilated into student life. I'm chilling in the first floor computer lab while waiting to move my laundry over in the room down the hall. How much more student-y can you get?

I wanted to check in once again. I think the culture shock is wearing off a bit and the student workload shock cycle is going to do the same, though since it started after the culture shock one, it'll end a bit later. I'm at the point now where I got everything done for that first week and have turned it all in -- and all of a sudden, it's time to do it all again! It's like a treadmill. A treadmill of libraries, papers, pens, professors and tantalizing free time you could use for studying.

But I'm not whining. This is what I do, isn't it? At the age of 21, I have spent more than three quarters of my life in school. Yes, I went to school in exotic places and in between there were summer vacations, but essentially, all I have ever done is be a student. And the adult world never tires of telling the youth that these are the best years of our lives, so I'm ready to enjoy my senior year. Even with the homework.

It was without a doubt a fantastic decision to not take the computer science class. I am now thrilled to have wound up in both Stylistic History of Cinema and Film Music in the same semester. Coincidences are amazing things. Yesterday, in contrast to the first day of music class, yesterday we watched clips from a few movies (M, The Passenger, Carrie, Forever Amber) and had to identify just what the music did for the movie in those scenes. Was it "just" background noise, was it advancing the plot, was it mimicking the plot, etc. Then, in the evening, I had my History of Cinema class - last week, when I had the class, we only watched a film and since the first class wasn't required, the professor didn't talk to us much. He saved his introduction to the course for last night.

OH. MY. GOODNESS. A very dorky part of my brain is in love with this professor's way of thinking, talking, and being. To give you a picture, he's a man in his (probably) mid-sixties who ALWAYS wears tight blue jeans, hawaiian button-down shirts, cowboy boots and (a new development this year) has shoulder-length wavy silvery hair. As we affectionately call it, Jesus hair. He has been teaching for at least 35 years at various different colleges and my class will be the last one he ever teaches. He's going into retirement and has revamped one of his previously lower-division classes (for those of you who don't know, that means it's a class intended to be okay for first-years to take, though it's not restricted to first years) as an upper-division one. That's our class.

Two nights a week, we have a three hour class with this man. The class is 9 people. And he's just fine with that. He has a hilarious way of talking that is hard to convey if you've never heard it. It's sort of that he wants to convey a piece of information but doesn't feel satisfied unless he gives you every detail about it, even if that means that a 5-minute explanation takes twenty. He is telling us about a film that a certain director directed which was done after that director's most successful film - which incidentally was called XXX and produced in the year YYY and made famous the actress ZZZ for her role as QQQ. Etc. Hilarious. He also says things like "With my hearing problems ((he's exaggerating), memory problems and... and just general dementia, this is gonna be a fun semester." He also says it all with a Texan accent.

But this all is just making him sound like a strange old man from Texas who can't seem to stay on topic, but that's only a small fraction of his character. The thing that is so endearing is how much he does for his students. He has made available to us the syllabus from each of the courses he has taught here along with his lecture notes from all of them. Every film we watch in class is available in the library but just in case it happens to be checked out of the library, he has them all in his office and we can borrow them from him. We all get a hard-copy of his lecture notes, exam review sheets, and other articles that he's written or collected about the films we're going to see -- all bound together in book form, something that would normally cost at least 30-50 $ (I know, having worked in a college bookstore) and he gets it all compiled and printed and bound himself and delivers it to us personally for free.

Add on top of all of that the fact that he is delivering information about film to us students that we've never heard before - understanding how the complex machinery came around, the debate about whether or not film would every BE art, --- and he says those fantastic things that you hear in your life that are SO obvious but you have NEVER thought about them. For example, no other art form is so intrinsically tied to technology. No other art form forces artists to be so collaborative (you can't be a master actor, director, producer, choreographer, screenwriter, cameraman, editor, sound mixer, composer, and movie theater owner). And, since it was not considered to be something worth saving or something that would ever really be art, 90% of all films that were made around the world before 1950 are gone.  You sit in his classroom and hear his passion as he talks about films, and all of a sudden, you want to simultaneously and immediately adopt him as a grandfather, sleep with your course reader under your pillow, and study film for the rest of your life.

There are few professors who can do that in one lecture. To be fair, it did take him three hours, but man, I had fun.  With that, I think I'll go move my laundry to the dryer!

*Sigh of relief*

I finally decided not to take that Java class this semester and making that decision relieved me more than I ever expected. Now I can concentrate on the rest of my classes and actually start coming up with a plan for the full semester instead of assuming the first four weeks would be full of five upper-division courses with a huge workload (three math assignments per week, 100 pages of reading per week in one class, only about fifty in another one but for that, the reading takes at least twice as long, two writing assignments per week, peer tutoring for Abstract Algebra and Real Analysis, etc.). I can have a plan and I can breathe and it feels AWESOME.

Also, I started taking a photo shoot of the campus last night so that I could show all of you what it really looks like here, but the light wasn't exactly optimal, so I'll have to take a few more pictures today in the sunshine (if it gets sunny) and then I'll post them here. :)

Also, I found a bike lock so I can zoom around campus on my bike again. And my coffee was delicious this morning. It's just a damn good day, apparently. :)

A few pictures from Santa Cruz and a few thoughts.

I realized I hadn't posted these few pictures from Santa Cruz yet, so here they are:

 

My iPhone has a camera on both sides, so I was trying to take a picture of something happening in front of me and ended up with this one, which I actually kind of like!

The first day after I got here, I went to Rockridge (an area right near where Oakland blends into Berkeley) with my friend Erin. Among other things, we visited the amazing and fantastically expensive store Market Hall, where they sell more delicious looking things than you could imagine. Everything from goat to duck to raspberry maple syrup, handmade gluten free pasta, and of course - what I was interested - so much amazing cheese! Needless to say, I didn't buy any, but I took a picture of it. :)

I also have to post here this picture below. Erin, one of my closest friends, gave me an incredible birthday present: earrings that are guitar picks with MATH written all over them! Take a closer look! :D :D :D

Now, I have two other thoughts that I wanted to write here. Number 1: I notice now (and I feel like I'm getting older as I say it) that since I'm living in a dorm room again, I sit on the floor a lot more than I used to back in the days of apartment life. My knees are noticing it!

Number 2: I was freaking out a bit the few days that I've been back here, feeling like I won't be able to keep up with my German with no one around here to speak it with. Then, thanks to some help from C, I had an idea - I still am obsessed with listening to audiobooks when I run or exercise but I have some issues with listening to books that were written in English in German - it just feels odd, if I could read the book in its original language (like Lord of the Rings, etc.). However, there are LOTS of books that I cannot read in their original language - such as Smilla's Sense of Snow (Fräulein Smillas Gespür für Schnee) and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Verblendung). For those books, I might as well listen to them in German - and so far, it's been lots of fun! Especially today in the relatively hot sun it was great to be hearing about piles of snow in a tiny town north of Stockholm...

However, far too soon, I'll be done with those books and will need something else. I'll be on the lookout for more!