reminiscent day

If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence
~George Eliot~

(whom I just learned this week, is actually a woman named Mary Anne Evans)

But when a young lady is to be a heroine... Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way

~Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen~

I've been trying to read simultaneously for my 3 english classes, and I happen to be reading a lot of bildungsroman. Bildungsroman is a literary genre, a story of the development and maturation of a young person into one of morally and socially righteous character, through emotional journeys and experiences. So basically if you think about it, everyone's life is a bildungsroman. And like in real life, some are just more interesting than others. So what makes a life a book-worthy bildungsroman?

The summary of the bildungsroman goes like this: boy gets girl, and then becomes like everybody else.

This is true in David Copperfield. It's also true in all the Jane Austen novels. The heroine gets married, and then the story ends. Why continue? She now fits neatly into her little role in society, of the happily married woman rescued by her loving (and conveniently handsome and wealthy) husband. But why does the story end once that perfect significant other is found? Don't people's lives continue after? Or is it just so boring, so "normal" that words needn't further explain it? Don't people continue to learn, morally, socially, and otherwise, even when they have the perfect man?

Bildungsroman are known for being dominantly "love stories". Not in a cheesy-drugstore-romance-novel way, but in that the happy end results in a concluding marriage/partnership. So if bildungsromans are love stories, and almost everybody's lives can be written into a bildungsroman, then by transitive property doesn't that mean that people's lives simply revolve around romances waiting to happen?

And if so, what does that mean about people's lives who aren't romances? Do we then, not get to be heroes? And even if our lives do just result to be a simple love story, if we're rescued by men anyway, wouldn't that mean we're technically still not the heroes of our own lives? And what if becoming like everyone else isn't the ending we want to have? Why do our lives have to be centered on finding that one person and fitting into that role of the bildungsroman hero/heroine? Is it even possible not to be the hero if your own life? What defines a hero or heroine anyway?

questions questions questions

let's be kids forever

does anyone else feel the warm fuzzies?

The Script at the Troubadour

I saw them on monday!
They're an Irish band that originally started up in Venice Beach, and is now the next big thing in the UK!
The main singer is not so cute, but his voice has got him covered.
Their opener, Neon Trees, was baaaaaaaad. horrible.

Breakeven - The Script

I've been yelping a lot lately. yelp yelp yelp! as in I actually write reviews for the places I go to. I've always thought that only people with wayyyy to much time on their hands do these kinds of things, but I felt like I was cheating the system. Like I was using everyone else's helpful reviews, but not contributing. Anyway, now I have a whole account and everything! I'm excited. It's such a handy way of keeping track of everywhere I've gone. Like a restaurant journal!

So I didn't get back last night until 3:30 am, and couldn't fall asleep until 6:3o am. and then I woke up at 8:30 am. We went to brew co and Maloney's as usual, and then some disgusting 24hr restaurant in k-town. Ok, it wasn't disgusting, it was just really, really nasty. I should review it on yelp! but i don't know the english name. I don't think it has one. I had kimchi fried rice and it was YUCKERS. I couldn't sleep after that, and I haven't slept since. I'm amazed I'm still functioning aptly.

Anyway! I want to go to this place called UnUrban Cafe. It's an open mike cafe, and I've heard hilarious/excruciating things about it. I really want to check it out. It seems so quintessentially artsy and bohemian, people struggling to express themselves. If only I had some original poetry to share! But I don't. So I'll just watch and judge. Yea, that's right, they know I'm judging them and laughing on the inside as they pour their hearts out! But only because I'm secretly jealous cuz I was not gifted with any poetic musings.

whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show

I've been having this feeling lately (well for the last couple days), that I can't really describe. I'm reading David Copperfield in my Victorian Novel class, and it's kind of touching at the surface of that feeling. Not in the way that I'm a timid little bastard boy who is sent off to boarding school when my mother remarries, experiencing life-altering adventures throughout my 1000 page life... It's more like I can relate to Dickens' writing style in the novel. It's an "autobiography" but the perspective is kind of disconnected and removed, but not in the 20th century British fiction kind of way. Like you can see him become more and more jaded by life. Ok, I don't think I'm describing it very well.

This first week has been perfect so far (cross fingers). It's a formulaic blend of friends+bars+clubbing+studying. Yes, I'm studying during first week, studying quite a lot, actually. But it's fun so I actually don't consider it studying. You know how people say if you love your work, you never have to work? Well I used to think that only applied to some brainless faux -job, like being a chocolate taster or jaguar tamer or jewel collector or hitman... you know, something everybody would obviously enjoy. But I think I MIGHT have found mine, and it's surprisingly none of those! I understand it now, that work can be enjoyable, even a passion!

I'm not certain if I'm very good at it yet. I mean, I know I'm not horrible, and I may even say I'm above average, but to say I'm the top-notch, world-class literary mind or even close to it, well I've got a looooooong way to go. The thought of going to grad school happened so organically, from talking to my professors, and when two of them recommended me to seriously consider it. It definitely wasn't a goal I had in mind when I entered UCLA. I didn't even take my first "real" English class until junior year. And there are so many brilliant people in my classes, much moreso than I am, it's intimidating and so discouraging! Remember when just figuring out what you wanted to do was the hard part? Now that I think I've got it, the problem is being capable enough. It's scary, its difficult, it's rough, will I make it?

I'm not exactly sure what period I want to specialize in, yet. I like so many of them! All the classes I've taken have been really historically rooted, I've only taken 1 modern lit class. I get the whole, "just give me sentences and plots that don't make sense, and it's depressing, fragmented, and meaningless and no one understands it, so it must be deep," thing with modern lit, but I enjoy the old stuff. I'm just waiting for that glorious professor who taught my first modern lit class to teach again. Mind blowing.

Anyway, I'm so excited for all my English classes, but also completely overwhelmed!!! I LOVE my Victorian Novel class, and the professor might just be a crazy genius. He has a really distracting face, and I have complete respect for his geeky enthusiasm and asthmatic laugh. Unfortunately, the reading list does not include Wuthering Heights. The Restoration Literature class is possibly... no, CERTAINLY the most BORING period in all of english literature, but the professor makes up for every bit of it by being super hilarious and engaging. Jane Austen Then and Now: enough said. Nothing can take the fun out of this class, even if my professor is bland as whole-wheat bread. And my management class... lets just hope I survive.

So that was pointless and I'm beat. First week is going by fast. This quarter will be amazing, I can already feel it!!!