Career Options

One gets a lot of opportunities to think during winter break, so I used 0.002% of that time to narrow down the list of things I'd like to be. In no particular order.

Neurologist
Astronomer
Conservation Biologist
Microbiologist
Geneticist
International Law Associate
Civil servant
Economist
World religions theologian
Investigator
Anthropologist/Historian
Inventor
Photographer
Writer
Choreographer
Music Arranger, Sound Editor
Film Editor
Mathematician, Logician
Archaeologist
Philosopher
Translator
Standup Comedienne
Nonprofit Employee
Intelligence Specialist
Dictator
Farmer
High-rise building window washer
Professional pole vaulter
Boxer
Stunt double
Aikido instructor
Special ops sniper
Civil rights leader
Outdoor guide/Rescuer
Dirtbag climber
Nun/Hermit
Albatross (qbwaaa-ukk!)

Performance

We are presenting our pieces to the class. Here were two really cool "site specific" dances.
Alex did hers in the Art Studio display case.


People in the math dept. get to see this every day.

Sorry I didn't take a picture of the tree dance, or my duet in the basement.

Practice Time

Katie is making a modern dance. Rashelle, Emily, Liz, and I are "black spirits" and we kind of swarm around Rosey is a "white" spirit
She wanted me to come up with a jump.

Dance Studies

I really like my class. I'm recording moves in my choreographer's journal and I couldn't explain the pose to hallmates, so I had them take a picture.

Wish List

Actually, I've been having so much fun that I don't spend much time on the computer.

Rockets, robots, trikes and fishes
Reveal to me Kate's Christmas wishes.

- Hockey skates
- regular gloves. I have big old ski gloves here. Thanks Luke.
- UPDATE: video camera. Canon HV20, Sanyo XACTI VPC-HD1000, Panasonic VDR.
- Climb Max or Deek and Bryan's Next Adventure REI card, thanks Mom.
- earrings. Thanks Mom.
- Photography/developing class over the break. with Teacher Dad.
- I would like to learn to use the 8mm video camera.
- sports bra from cw-x.com
- Massage Oh my God, thanks Mom.
- Here's the big one. Yosemite Mountaineering School: private lessons to cover protection, anchors, leading/multi-pitch, and finally a big wall Guided Climb. www.yosemitepark.com/Activities_YosemiteBackpacker_Climbing.aspx

That's pretty much it. Everything else is books and music.

Dinners at home:
It doesn't really matter. However, I would like the Christmas Eve meat to be free-range, whatever animal it is. That's a good present.
Lasagna. Steak dinner. Berries.

Readables Wish List

#1. Once a Runner: A Novel by John L. Parker

#2. A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L'Engle. Thanks Grandma!

#3. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

#4. Science News [MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTION]

#5. Edible and Medicinal Plants of the West by Gregory L. Tilford (or something similar)

Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein

Whirligig by Paul Fleischman

Others See Us by William Sleator

A beginner’s Arabic workbook

The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question? by Dick Teresi, Leon Lederman

The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead by Max Brooks

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook Thanks Dad.

California Blue by David Klass

The Runner by Cynthia Voigt

Music Wish List

#1. Tales of Captain Black ~ James Blood Ulmer

#2. C'Etait Ici and L’absente and Rue de Cascades ~ Yann Tiersen

#3. Symphony No. 3 Thanks Dad! Violin Concerto and Dance Pieces ~ Philip Glass

#4. Antics and Our Love to Admire ~ Interpol

#5. Multi Kontra Culti vs. Irony ~ Gogol Bordello

#6. From an Early Age: Music of the Gypsies ~ Various Artists

House of Flying Daggers [Soundtrack] ~ Shigeru Umebayashir

Song Of The Crooked Dance: Early Bulgarian Traditional Music 1927-42 ~ Various Artists

Exodus ~ Bob Marley (vinyl)
Experiment Zero ~ Man or Astro-man?

Kaleidoscope ~ Siouxsie & The Banshees

Milo Goes to College ~ Descendents

Station to Station ~ David Bowie (vinyl)
Guero ~ Beck

Terror State ~ Anti-Flag

Daydream Nation ~ Sonic Youth

Plastic Surgery Disasters / In God We Trust Inc. ~ Dead Kennedys

Go Back in Time!

At the Renaissance Faire. heh heh.





My dad's cousin Jill.























Soccer, Fall 2000









Yosemite

Block Four

Almost coming to terms with my essays. I absolutely need a break from intensive all-nighter papers. Here's what I'm taking next block after Thanksgiving:

DA221: Beginning Choreographic Forms: Theory and Practice
Study of the choreographic form through problems dealing with aspects of space, time and motion. Prerequisite: 1/4 Unit of Beginning Modern Dance or Dance Improvisation or prior dance experience is recommended. [which I definitely have] 1 unit — taught by Herminjard.
Dance Theory website. I am filled with so much excitement! even in my present dazed state.

Don't worry, (Dad!) because then after winter break I have: Calculus, Spanish, Chemistry, Political Science.

Stress on the Body, Stress on the Mind

Jenny the RA is driving to Denver Wednesday afternoon, so she can take me. I need to contact Eric or other Jesuit people at DU to spend the night.
Now I'm swamped to my eyeballs in essay writing. We have three six-pagers due @ noon tomorrow and they were all assigned within the last four days.
Cross country post-season checkouts were yesterday. I got those dreaded words from the trainers - well, they're actually letters: "P.T." Pa-tooey. "You've been swimming and icing every day, but those knees are just not getting better." At least our insurance is "really good," so next Block I'll start going to Rocky Mountain Physical Therapy.
Over Thanksgiving I need a pool, or perhaps a bike, or at least a stationary. I will probably rest and sleep all Thursday, but otherwise I need to keep up my fitness. I've been working really hard. Weights or climbing would be nice too. Are any of these places near where we'll be?

Vertical Relief Climbing Gym
- SW corner of Benton Ave. and San Francisco St.
Mission Cliffs
- 2295 Harrison Street in SF
Berkeley Ironworks
- 800 Potter Street in Berkeley
Bladium Rock Wall
- 800 West Tower Avenue, Bldg 40 in Alameda

Thanksgiving Weekend, Block Break

Itinerary (a Mom word). But Midterms = too busy to think. Tell me if this is still right.

Nov. 22nd Flight
Denver to Oakland
United 0449
Depart: DEN 11:37 am
Arrive: OAK 01:18 pm

Nov. 25th Flight
San Francisco to Colorado Springs
United 6378 United Express/skywest
Depart: SFO 12:54 pm
Arrive: COS 04:23 pm

I have to

1. get a ride to Denver on Thursday around 8-9 am.
2. or on Wed, and spend the night with Eric/Eric's friend
   

Mom and Dad, see comments below for my projected expenses for next Block.

Tales of Victory and Woe, Chapter Three

Championship Woe
Bummer at St. Olaf's [2007 NCAA Division III Men's Cross Country Championship]
The preview said:

"Colorado College's Julian Boggs is the top returning finisher from the 2006 Championships. Boggs, who was second to Occidental's Kevin Chaves in the West Regional last week, was third in last fall's final."

But Boggs got 13th, kind of disappointing. Still, Alex Nichols got 14th and they're both All-Americans and got these cool medals. CC was 21st of 32 teams. We're proud.
Women were 31st, but it's kind of a big deal that they went.

Party Victory
Sammi said I should go out instead of studying all night, literally, for the seventh day in a row -- for the sake of my sanity, even if I needed to study. And to get out the wiggles. So yesterday I slept all day, then went to the hockey game (I love hockey!), then I made midnight pancakes for myself and for random hall people that were willing to barter with foodstuffs (they were delicious. I got chocolate, bread, and chili) and then I met up with Molly and Chelsea and we went to the XC end-of-the-season party which was extremely enjoyable even though most there were utterly exhausted. We mostly danced around like crazy. Wonderful people. After they collapsed, we went to one of the fraternities' spandex party. Boy, that was a lot of spandex. Also, we saw a deer with huge antlers crossing the street. It looked like a little moose. Some people thought they were hallucinating. Molly and I outlasted everyone at the spandex party and everyone left and we were still dancing and then the fraternity people came in and gave us about a million high-fives after we convinced them that we were sustained purely by joie de vivre and our background in endurance athletics. And pancakes. Man, I make killer pancakes. Right now I'm regretting that I forgot my shiny silver pants for that party. Oh well. They were a little dirty. I did wear the see-through blouse to bowling this month. (Redneck theme)

Aaron's Birthday

Quick, look down at November 7th for Aaron's finished birthday letter.

Hockey Time, with pictures!

We won today 4 to 1. It was kind of fluffy so we only played with four on our side, and everyone got to take a lot of breaks. Except for me, of course, being the only "good" girl to show up. But like in dodgeball, and like when I played indoor with Carrie Scott's team at Soccerplex, I'm used to not subbing out. [Coed teams must have two girls in play at all times, unless they want to play shorthanded.]

*Oh, right, last night we lost in the quarterfinals of dodgeball so we're out for good. Nice season, though.


Honnen Ice Rink

Defense as usual.


I got one shot on goal tonight, which is better than my average.


I body slammed this big guy. That's him trying to get up.


Just pretending.


Looking better. I don't fall down on my own anymore.

Thanks to Stuart for taking all the pictures. He thinks it's brilliant that my grandma reads my blog.

Artists in Exile

Right now we're studying film: mostly Murnau (Faust, The Last Laugh/Der letzte Mann, Nosferatu, Sunrise) and Fritz Lang (M, Metropolis, The Big Heat, The Woman in the Window)

The whole theory is that American film noir is from German expressionism and Bauhaus. Here's some of my last paper arguing in favor of silent film:

The aesthetic superiority of silent cinema is an argument held by Rudolf Arnheim. In his view, the absence of color and the absence of sound dictate the medium of quality filmmaking. Proponents of silent film will probably philosophize that art is a confrontation of creativity and boundary. It is by working within limitations that artistic effect is achieved. In Arnheim’s words, “such indirect representation of an event in a material that is strange to it, or giving not the action itself but only its consequences, is a favorite method in all art” (Arnheim 107). As in film, the parameters of a sonnet exemplify the literary license taken; the ballerina’s dance is dramatic because of the confines of the human body and the demands of the choreography on it. To Arnheim, film is at its artistic best when the director uses its lack of depth, color, and sound to represent the human condition on an even more soulful level.

Arnheim celebrates black-and-white film for putting a greater focus on the effects of light: “The reduction of actual color values to a one-dimensional gray series is a welcome divergence from nature which renders possible the making of significant and decorative pictures by means of light and shade” (Arnheim 66). In Sunrise, there are two very different scenes of the Man with women: first, a memory of good times with his wife and baby; second, a rendezvous with the Woman from the City. In the first scene it is daylight and very bright, all characters look bathed in white. The Man runs over to hug his family. The characters move very quickly. We get a sense of contentedness and innocence. In the second, the Man and the city woman are embracing in the swamp. It is nighttime; they move slowly and seem to flicker in the shadows. Though the passion is tangible, we get a sense of greed and guilt. We only see half of their faces: the city woman’s face is pale, but not bright, and the Man’s face is heavily shadowed. Later, after he is forgiven and shaved, the lighting on the Man’s face makes him radiant. The transformation is obvious and dramatic. It signifies that his burdens are gone. We get to see the transformation again just to be sure, after the Wife is rescued from the water. Light can be used to romanticize facial expression. A little later, when the man asks his wife to go out boating, the camera trains on her as she moves from despair to hope to joy, the shadows literally lifting from her face. The cinematography highlights this gorgeous bit of acting. In color, we might have focused on the flush in her cheeks or the color of her eyes –pretty, but not significant.

Sunrise, 1927 - the same year as The Jazz Singer. Not a talkie but not silent either, soundtrack and some sound effects were added using sound-on-film (Fox Movietone) system.