instrumental extravaganza

wish i didn't delete my youtube downloading program

maybe all Edna really needed was just a swim coach

"One of these days," she said, "I'm going to pull myself together for a while and think -- try to determine what character of a woman I am; for, candidly, I don't know."

If I had a nickel for everytime I've thought about how much of my identity I don't understand... well I'd probably have like 7 nickels.

I haven't taken as many English classes as I would like to have in the past few years, but this will be the third time I'm reading The Awakening. I'm not complaning though, it's one of my favorite books. And every time I reread it, it gets all the more ambiguous.

When I wrote my first essay on it, I read Edna's death as a suicide, as Chopin's commentary on how constricting society is upon women, so that the only way for Edna to rise above these female expectations is to go to her death. She refuses to lose her identity to her children and husband like Madame Ratignolle has, but isn't brave enough to live outside social conventions as a lonely but self-sufficient artist like Mademoiselle Reisz (talk about foils...).

I wonder if this problem is still applicable today? It seems like women can have it all, can't they? Being 40 and alone, or even 50 and single, doesn't really seem to carry such negative connotations anymore. Especially since the glamourization of characters like Samantha Jones.

I've always wondered if people who are constantly in relationships ever get a chance to develop their individualistic, independent "self". But then I guess reading Freeman's "A New England Nun", lacking a "relational self-identity" is also kind of disturbing. It's definitely not good to be alone forever, either. Is there a healthy balance for oneself, between being alone and being in relationships, and has anyone found that balance yet? And what do you do once you're married and you're permanently in a relationship? And then once you have kids and you're never alone again??

Come to think of it, Edna's dilemma is still applicable today... at least it's applicable for people who have the desire for freedom or a self that's beyond the social identity of "mother" or "wife". And then there are Madame Ratignolle-types that are blessed with never even having this time-wasting bullshit cross their minds, and can live perfectly contently in a little box.

Reading The Awakening for the third time, my professor brought up the possibility that it may not be so clear Edna's death really is a premeditated suicide. And if it was just an accident, isn't that just so much less poetic and heroic for the self-identity enthusiasts out there? That Edna didn't chose to make a statement about her individuality, but instead innocently became a martyr without knowing what she died for? But I wonder what would have happened to her if she didn't drown? Could she have fit back into her babies and minced pies mold? Highly doubtful.

So was it an innocent death or an intended suicide? I guess it depends how optimistically you want to read it, and how much faith you put into the whole wistful-yet-exhilarating idea of giving up your life before you give up your "self".

People say Chopin wrote her novel 40 years too early. But more than a century later, I guess we're still dealing with a similar female-role dilemma, if not universal self-identity dilemma. Chopin ended the story so that drowning is even more tempting than living in a suffocating society... and if that's so, then maybe I'd better get a swim coach too?

Finished my bullshit-paper-that-took-way-too-long on Thursday SO

I went to the Standard and Library Bar! the ambiance at the Library Bar is actually very nice. New York-ish but in LA. The people too. I like it when you can go to a bar and there are guys there that are just hanging out with each other and not trying to pick up girls. and you can have decent conversations without there being any inappropriate expectations. Not that it ever really happens. Anyway, we ended the night at Maloneys again, like we always do, and do you even have to ask? Yes, Greg was there. and he let us skip the line. I'm just counting the days till he gets sick of me.

Catalina on Saturaday with my aptroomies!!! It will probably be the last trip we have together since we're all going our separate ways after this summer... wowzers. one is going to columbia, one is traveling around Asia in august and then UCLA nusing school, one is working, and one is mildly uncertain and unsettlingly free (yup, guilty). we had to wake up at 4 to catch the 6:15 ferry, but it actually wasn't too bad. Well I also had "Kona Coffee" which is apparently a big deal on Catalina. They love them bison there too. ODD. We kayaked and biked and laid out and ate A LOT. Catalina is kind of like Hawaii mixed with a really Americanized version of Mexico. So I guess it's basically Cabo.

Yardhouse tonight with my homies (literally)!! Cindipede found a picture of us from Repetto in like... 7th grade?!? and everyone looked the same except me!!! I looked SO different. And man, did I have bad style. And I mean hair style. You know the kids in the movies that always get made fun of and are the outcasts with no friends, and you can immediately spot them? Well I feel like I looked like that kid, but I had no idea!!! No one ever told me or was mean to me or hinted anything about the way I looked (or at least not that I was aware of), and I always had a good group of friends. Guess I got lucky and grew up in an unshallow neighborhood :) It's weird that I look so different, but I feel like the exact same person. I always just wore what I liked, and I still do, and my hair is just like... "well that works!" (altho it really didn't in 7th grade...). I had to do triple takes on that picture like "WHAT?! How did I not know I used to look like that?" Ahahaha. I wonder if I'll think that about how I am now, when I look back in 10 years... Anyway, I had a blast in Jr. High, I suppose that's all that matters. Thanks for being friends with me when I had a crazy boy bangs, guys!

I hope the meeting-up tradition continues till... always. And we'll chat about life etc. when we're mahjonging it like ballers and we're way beyond menopause and we'll have already smoothed out all the kinks along the rollercoaster ride (or at least have jolted past them) and all that's left is sunny afternoons on porches sipping tea with buzzing bees, and hitting on old grandpas (which of course we will do. I call the one with the most teeth and joint flexibility).

And now I'm back at "home" home, in my sisters room even tho it's hot as heck. I like it more than my own room. Cuz she's in it. I like my mom's room best. Sometimes I think that if I were my sister and I had me for a sister, I would be really irritated and be like "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" all the time. But she's very accepting. I'm just a really lucky girl, family and friends wise.

Thanks :)

PS. My camera died so I sadly do not have pictures. My cameras keep breaking on me. Maybe if I name the next one it'll feel inclined to stay around longer?

People say that those who have a passion for traveling are internally unsettled, constantly searching for something and chronically dissatisfied... trying to find life, their own identities, experiences, other people, etc... Perhaps I like to travel because I'm always searching too, for things I don't even know I'm looking for.

If someday I find a place or person that makes me feel like 5AMs with donuts by the sidwalk and fresh pavement in cold, crisp, morning air; faded newspaper cartoons; Christmas gift catalogs; afternoon street corners; display window reflections, soft light, fresh flowers and skirts; slits of sunlight falling between tree leaves; cozily lit rooms behind window curtains; midnight neighborhoods in small, familiar towns; amber honey swirling off the spoon; music beyond the songs; lingering colors... when and if I ever feel all of it somewhere, I'll be home :)

"The great point in his face was that it was intensely alive-- frankly, ardently, gallantly alive. The look of it was like a bell, of which the handle might have been in the young man's soul: at a touch of the handle it rang with a loud, silver sound. There was something in his quick, light brown eye which assured you that he was not economizing his consciousness. He was not living in a corner of it to spare the furniture of the rest. He was squarely encamped in the centre and he was keeping open house. When he smiled, it was like the movement of a person who in emptying a cup turns it upside down: he gave you the last drop of his jollity."
~The American, Henry James~

Sigh, that's the stuff great literature is made of.

I'm so behind on my reading for my American Literature class, but we're reading such great stuff, I can't rush through it! I have to go back and reread all the Dickinson and Whitman, and allot them the time they deserve. Especially since I humiliated myself by performing a completely shitty job on the quiz today. Henry James is a toughie, but his diction is like all the gilding along the walls of extravagant Bellgrade rooms. Little intricate details that are individually remarkable, but melded altogether to create a piece of even more overwhelming art. ...not as great as his metaphors, huh.

Great, there's a semi-fight going on right outside my apartment complex. again.

Watching SATC Season 3 in bed with ice cream after a loooong day. of playing :) I think I've been devouring New York vicariously through shows that take place in NYC, like How I Met Your Mother and SATC. That can't be healthy.

I've been so unproductive lately! Things keep getting in the way. Like going out. And stuff. Maybe I should sleep huh... I was supposed to apply for this job I wanted on Sunday... and now it's Friday and I still haven't done it yet... It also comes with a 3900 character essay, which is kind of hindering. I will do it this weekend! No excuses! Gosh I need to get a move on it!