Well, ours is not to reason why. Enough of the weather. On to the weekly recap:
...Uh. I did do things this week! I swear, I did! I mean, I went to class, and... went to class, and... Oh! On Tuesday I went and learned some basics of belly dance, which was really fun and enabled my love of moving random parts of my body in weird ways. (Huh. It sounds really creepy when I put it like that.) I went to a meeting for a new group called Freshleyan, which is trying to start up a sort of fashion thing on campus, and no, I really can't explain it any better than that. Sorry. Sometimes my ability to be articulate fails me at the most inconvenient times.
This Friday I went to see The Lion King at the film series, which was GREAT because The Lion King is a classic movie and Timon and Pumba make everything better. (Last Friday the film series played Drive, which I also went to see and which was pretty good but obviously can't compare to the glory of The Lion King.)
Yesterday (Saturday) I made pancakes for Flatmate Katie (chocolate chip), Delightful Neighbor Kristen* (plain, with syrup), and myself (oats and blueberries), following which we went ice skating at Wesleyan's own Spurrier-Snyder Rink. It was quite excellent, even if it took me about fifteen minutes just to lace up my freaking skates.
Side note: Apparently you can now rent ice skates from Wesleyan? I don't know the details, but if you want to be able to take a turn out on the ice but are feeling sadly limited by your lack of foot-strappable blades, you are now freed from the tyranny of not having brought skates to school! Go! Rent! Skate free! Try not to fall!
[Below the cut: Some more random stuff about my week, a few pictures, and the promised Open Letter Regarding Discussions of the Future With Relatives and Family Friends Who Have Kind Intentions.]
*You may notice that I have taken this opportunity to specify my Delightful Neighbor, and I regret to report that Delightful Neighbor David has vanished off to England for the semester like the deserting deserter he is. This is the depressing part of junior year. I've got another friend in China, one in Denmark, one in Ireland, and one doing a multiple country program, although the last one was always so busy with homework/science stuff that I never got to see her anyway, so I guess that that won't take much time to get used to?
Anyway. Pictures!
Ryan Gosling in Drive. (Can I just say that I now understand why people find him so attractive?) If you don't know anything about this movie and are considering seeing it, just be warned that about midway through, it suddenly changes from a sweet, contemplative action-y romance-y thing starring a getaway driver, to a blood-soaked revenge-fest where characters' heads get blown into pieces right on screen. It was a bit of a turnaround, to say the least.
HAKUNA MATATA, BABY. There is so much that is wonderful about this movie, I can't even express it. "Be Prepared" is one of the best Disney villain songs, Timon and Pumba are the best slacker friends anyone could ask for, and I always get a little teary about Mufasa.
Okay, so there's really no reason for me to post this picture other than my brief mention of ice skating earlier, but who I am to turn down an opportunity to post a photo of the ridiculously talented and ridiculously gorgeous Kim Yu-Na, the South Korean figure skater who won gold at the 2010 Winter Olympics?
Sometimes I like pretend that there's a universe out there where I'm that talented, because in this universe the most impressive thing I can do on the ice is skate backwards without falling down.
Other than that? Well, still more Veronica Mars. (Season 2, now!) I fell in love with the first season, so much so that I bolted through all of it in approximately, oh, a week. It would have taken me less time, but I had to drag myself away to go attend classes and do homework, sadly. The second season hasn't hooked me quite as thoroughly, but I'm still enjoying myself quite a bit. (I have been forbidden from watching the third season by at least 5 people — namely, everyone to whom I've spoken about it who has watched the show — so I guess I won't be able to pass judgement on that one.)
Okay. So now that that's just about wrapped up...
An Open Letter Regarding Discussions of the Future With Relatives and Family Friends Who Have Kind Intentions
It really would have been best if I had been able to write this during break, when it would have been slightly more relevant, but hey, better late than never.
So here's the deal: I saw a lot of relatives and family friends over winter break. And that was fine! They're (mostly) nice people, yadda yadda yadda. However, when adults talk to college students they haven't seen in a while, there are inevitably some topics of conversation that always, always get brought up — especially if the college student is a senior, like my poor, beleaguered Lovely Sister.
Now, I know there are some relatives of mine who read this blog, and I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Really. I completely understand that you love us (probably) and want to know what's going on in our lives. Either that or you have no idea what to say to us and you're casting around for a subject of conversation, and this one seems the easiest to think up. In the latter case, though, just try to imagine that you have some particular feature that sets you apart from your conversational partner. You're from Minnesota, for example. Wouldn't it get really tiring if every time you talked to someone, they said, "Oh, Minnesota. How do you live up there? Isn't it freezing?"
Now imagine that instead of just being able to nod and change the subject, you were expected to explain all the different ways that you deal with the cold weather in Minnesota, and which ones you think are most effective, and maybe why you chose to live in Minnesota in the first place even though it's so cold.
Again, and again, and again. Wouldn't it make you feel a little bit like this?:
And as for the people who really, sincerely want to know what's going on in my life? You mean well and I appreciate it and I want to talk to you. I'm sure I do. And you know what, maybe some people really enjoy talking about the future and their prospects and the internships they're going for and what they think they can do with their college degree and what they plan to do if that doesn't work out and whether they've thought about this or that or the other — but I don't. I hate it. The future terrifies me, and while yes, I have done some thinking about it, picking this as a subject of conversation will almost inevitably cause me to shut down and really, really want to stop talking.
(As far as I'm concerned, if you flat-out ask me about my post-graduation plans, my answer is going to be "Starbucks." End of story.)
But that doesn't mean I necessarily want to stop talking to you! It just means that I'd rather talk about something else. Anything else. Ask me about movies I've seen recently, or about my blog, or what classes I'm in, or about how I felt about the Connecticut blackout. Ask me something tailored to what you know about my interests and my current life, or just go for the catch-all, "What's new?" Trust me to bring up my future in time, in bits and pieces, if it comes up naturally in conversation and I'm not feeling pressured about it.
It's the obvious question, I know. But if it's that obvious to you, don't you think that maybe it's been obvious to the other 400 million people I've talked to over break?
Here. Have a puppy.
[Original tags on this post: adorable things because I am boring,cute fluffy things,disney, dumb weather is dumb, film series, I swear I do leave my apartment sometimes, ice skating is terribly impressive and I am not, relatives: they mean well!, this post is way too long,totally self-indulgent]
No comments:
Post a Comment