Friday, December 19, 2008
Oh, Klahoma
There is an owl sitting right outside my bedroom window. On one hand, I'm excited. That never happens in Provo. On the other hand, I'm annoyed. This will make things tricky when trying to fall asleep. Oh, Klahoma.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Long Time Gone
What should I be doing right now? Let me tell you. I should be looking up SparkNotes for the Italian book that I have a quiz on later today. I should be choosing 5 hymns to silently dictate for my Dictation class. I should be cramming for my Dictation final today. I should be making outlines for my Humanities final. I should be finishing my Music Theory final. I should be ripping up the Sudoku in the newspaper today so I won't be tempted to waste any more time than I am currently wasting...but what the heck. I feel guilty about my lack of bloggage so I thought i should remedy that problem.
Update: Life is good. With Christmas and finals coming up, I've been pretty busy. Actually, I take that back. I'm no busier than I was before. David is busier and somehow that makes me feel more stressed. He's got an Organic Chemistry test today and that's not even his final. Poor kid. Finals are going to be pretty brutal for him whereas I should be done by Wednesday or so. I've been trying to think what I can do while he's still studying and I have no schoolwork to do. So far I've come up with the following things:
1. Start/finish making Christmas presents
2. Stimulate myself intellectually with the 4th Twilight book that I haven't read yet
3. Bake. I really want to try gingerbread.
4. Clean. I haven't done that in a while.
That's all I've got. I'm pretty sure I'm going to feel like a little kid in Sacrament Meeting. I'll just hunker down with a coloring book and some Cheerios. If anyone has good ideas of ways to entertain yourself quietly while my boyfriend is studying, let me know.
Tonight David and I are going to his work Christmas party. He does research in a chemistry lab on campus. I asked David if they would talk about normal stuff or all chemistry stuff at the party. He assured me they wouldn't talk all about chemistry. That's somewhat comforting. I don't think I'll be able to turn the conversation to Baroque music or Postmodern abstraction, but hopefully I'll be able to say a sentence or two about something. Basically chemistry is not my scene, but I'm excited to meet some of David's coworkers/professors.
On Saturday, David and I going to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert. Yes, I know, my life is awesome. You don't have to remind me of that. David's parents were so nice to get us tickets. I'm so stoked. I've never been to one of their concerts. Plus, I just love being in Salt Lake. This will be the third time David and I will have been on temple square in the last month. First we went to the Bell Choir concert, then we just walked around to see the lights, and now we'll go see the MoTab. I love Christmas.
Ok, this next paragraph is going to leave most of you scratching your head. You'll wonder why on the planet I wanted to write about this. Yesterday in my Humanities 350 class, one kid gave a presentation on the artist Goya. He's a very famous Spanish painter from way back when. He showed us one of his paintings titled Saturn devouring his son. It's a painting of the myth of Saturn. It was prophecied that one his children would rise up and overthrow his power, so he devoured all of his children to prevent such events from transpiring. (Zeus eventually escaped this really disgusting fate and did overthrow his father) I have a picture of it posted below, but I tried to keep it small because it really is quite grotesque.
Anyway, the thing that I found most interesting was that he painted this on the wall of his house. It wasn't until years after his death that the painting was even discovered because his house was left to his children and grandchildren and stuff. During the presentation I thought about how frightening it must have been for his poor grandchildren to go visit grandpa when he had such scary paintings all over the place. And then I thought of my dear Uncle Chris. When all the cousins on my mom's side were younger, we would play in my grandma's basement. We had full reign of that floor, but there was one room you didn't enter...Uncle Chris's room. It was very dark and very scary and very much covered with Iron Maiden posters. The older cousins used to dare each other to go in there. I never did go in. I was so much younger and probably still upset that the older cousins wouldn't let me down the laundry chute.
Anyway, that was a very long explanation for a fleeting thought, but I couldn't help but laugh at the parallels. So really this painting was like the Iron Maiden posters of the 1700s. And while it's grotesque, it's somewhat appealing. I know everyone will think I'm weird for saying that...well, everyone but Breezy. One of the things I've learned through my study of art philosophy is that art doesn't have to make us feel warm and fuzzy all the time. Breezy used to use the analogy of a loose tooth. Even though it hurts when you try to push on it and wiggle it out, it still feels good in an odd way. In fact, if that's the only reason we like art, then we're missing the whole purpose of it. I could go into further detail but this post is already getting too long. So just ponder on that...
Update: Life is good. With Christmas and finals coming up, I've been pretty busy. Actually, I take that back. I'm no busier than I was before. David is busier and somehow that makes me feel more stressed. He's got an Organic Chemistry test today and that's not even his final. Poor kid. Finals are going to be pretty brutal for him whereas I should be done by Wednesday or so. I've been trying to think what I can do while he's still studying and I have no schoolwork to do. So far I've come up with the following things:
1. Start/finish making Christmas presents
2. Stimulate myself intellectually with the 4th Twilight book that I haven't read yet
3. Bake. I really want to try gingerbread.
4. Clean. I haven't done that in a while.
That's all I've got. I'm pretty sure I'm going to feel like a little kid in Sacrament Meeting. I'll just hunker down with a coloring book and some Cheerios. If anyone has good ideas of ways to entertain yourself quietly while my boyfriend is studying, let me know.
Tonight David and I are going to his work Christmas party. He does research in a chemistry lab on campus. I asked David if they would talk about normal stuff or all chemistry stuff at the party. He assured me they wouldn't talk all about chemistry. That's somewhat comforting. I don't think I'll be able to turn the conversation to Baroque music or Postmodern abstraction, but hopefully I'll be able to say a sentence or two about something. Basically chemistry is not my scene, but I'm excited to meet some of David's coworkers/professors.
On Saturday, David and I going to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert. Yes, I know, my life is awesome. You don't have to remind me of that. David's parents were so nice to get us tickets. I'm so stoked. I've never been to one of their concerts. Plus, I just love being in Salt Lake. This will be the third time David and I will have been on temple square in the last month. First we went to the Bell Choir concert, then we just walked around to see the lights, and now we'll go see the MoTab. I love Christmas.
Ok, this next paragraph is going to leave most of you scratching your head. You'll wonder why on the planet I wanted to write about this. Yesterday in my Humanities 350 class, one kid gave a presentation on the artist Goya. He's a very famous Spanish painter from way back when. He showed us one of his paintings titled Saturn devouring his son. It's a painting of the myth of Saturn. It was prophecied that one his children would rise up and overthrow his power, so he devoured all of his children to prevent such events from transpiring. (Zeus eventually escaped this really disgusting fate and did overthrow his father) I have a picture of it posted below, but I tried to keep it small because it really is quite grotesque.
Anyway, the thing that I found most interesting was that he painted this on the wall of his house. It wasn't until years after his death that the painting was even discovered because his house was left to his children and grandchildren and stuff. During the presentation I thought about how frightening it must have been for his poor grandchildren to go visit grandpa when he had such scary paintings all over the place. And then I thought of my dear Uncle Chris. When all the cousins on my mom's side were younger, we would play in my grandma's basement. We had full reign of that floor, but there was one room you didn't enter...Uncle Chris's room. It was very dark and very scary and very much covered with Iron Maiden posters. The older cousins used to dare each other to go in there. I never did go in. I was so much younger and probably still upset that the older cousins wouldn't let me down the laundry chute.
Anyway, that was a very long explanation for a fleeting thought, but I couldn't help but laugh at the parallels. So really this painting was like the Iron Maiden posters of the 1700s. And while it's grotesque, it's somewhat appealing. I know everyone will think I'm weird for saying that...well, everyone but Breezy. One of the things I've learned through my study of art philosophy is that art doesn't have to make us feel warm and fuzzy all the time. Breezy used to use the analogy of a loose tooth. Even though it hurts when you try to push on it and wiggle it out, it still feels good in an odd way. In fact, if that's the only reason we like art, then we're missing the whole purpose of it. I could go into further detail but this post is already getting too long. So just ponder on that...
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