Calling All Music Lovers!

I give up. Computers are impossible to understand.

In other words: I am clearly incompetent and unable to correctly download all of my music to iTunes. I've gotten the majority of it (joy!) but my computer absolutely refuses to recognize a few files, so if anybody out there has copies of the following CDs, please let me know! I absolutely do NOT want to pay for them all again, though I will if I must. I'm not putting out stuff I just want--only that which has been lost to me through the evils of technology!

Snow Patrol
The Fray: How to Save a Life
The Decemberists: Crane Wife
The Dixie Chicks: Home

In other news, I am all alone in my house (stalkers welcome) and it is the single most liberating feeling ever. FUrthermore, it is cold. Furthermore, my room is cleaner than it has been since I moved in, and I fully plan on moving on to the living room next, only to end with the kitchen.

I have nothing else even remotely interesting to say, unfortunately. I'm organizing my word files now, so hopefully I can get back to my writing tomorrow. Also, coming soon: my professional review of Gravity's Rainbow. Yes, I am terrified.

Shaking in my Espadrilles

I got my new computer yesterday! Hurray! In a comic twist, I posted about wanting my new computer available when I got home and then, when I opened the door, what was waiting for me but a new computer? Hurray!

In other news, today I was accepted to the New York Teaching Fellows! Hurray! THe program accepted 12% of its applicants this year, so I feel very special. I was chosen to teach Spanish, which could be problematic with the whole being unable to roll my rrrs thing. Hmmm.

It seems like a terrific program. I teach a regular shift, receiving a regular teacher's salary of about $43,000. Meanwhile, the program subsidizes Master's classes at Syracuse. Not bad. And yet, it requires me to live in scary NYC, far from everyone I know, to begin in mid-June, to take a lot of classes and is overall completely terrifying.

My other option? The completely unterrifying and somewhat comfortable Jesuit Volunteer Corps, where I would work in a minimally difficult job and focus on spirituality. It would be a nice little segue between college and the future, and if I could be absolutely certain that I would be accepted to the NYCTF the following year, I would take it in a heartbeat. But there's no guarantee of that, so I'm stuck in this position of recognizing that this could be the opportunity of a lifetime and feeling like either way I go will have a huge impact on what I do for the rest of my life.

I wish I had a guardian angel who would just tell me what to do. Wouldn't that be marvelous? What I have instead are a series of parents who are concerned primarily for my financial well-being, and a group of friends who don't really understand what it's like to be in this position (no offense). I guess what I need to decide is what I really want to get out of next year, and what I want to get out of my life. Do I want to teach? Do I want to live in New York?

Ooh boy, questions too big for my little head. ON the other hand, if I take the New YOrk opportunity, I don't have to really find a job for the summer. Hmmmm

Nearing the End

You can learn a lot about a person by the way he says good-bye. Which is a kind of pointless observation, because by the time people are saying good-bye, there is no longer the opportunity to get to know them better. Nonetheless, just thought I'd throw it out there.

As people are leaving for the summer and moving away, good-byes are more freqent (hello, Captain Obvious) but there's a strange feeling of fakery to these farewells. Because I'm not moving anywhere, it doesn't seem real for me, so I say good-bye with a smile and a wave, while I'm met with tears and hugs.

Here's the honest truth: no matter how much I care about a person, and enjoy being in his company, I probably won't miss him for more than a week. There. I said it. I am fully prepared for the onslaught of distress. But let's be truthful; people are in a large supply in this world, and it's easy to replace one friend with another. Not another the same, and not to hold the same place in the heart, but for confiding, joking, and passing time with.

Well, that was a rather callous entry, wasn't it? I owe it to the largely empty and odd-smelling ResComp. HEre's hoping (but doubting) that my new computer is waiting for me at home.

I hate making decisions, I hate when things don't work, and I really hate pressure. There. Glad that's out in the open. In other news, I can't wait for May, for there to finally be nothing happening. I can't wait for my new computer, to get back to writing. I've decided to move my coffeepot into my room, and every morning I will wake up, make a cup of coffee, and then sit out on the roof to write, as dawn creeps over the trees. it sounds romantic. Mostly it will probably just be cold, mildly frightening, and highly illegal.

As I feel that any blog must have some edification value, I have decided that mine will be this: to help bring literature to the masses by reviewing at least a book a week. Perhaps I will choose a particular day to do so. If so, that day will be today. A Friday. Friday's are wonderful days. I will call it. . .Fiction Friday. Of course, it could occassionally be delayed until Monday, which would make it. . .Mandatory Reading Monday. Or Tuesday/Thursday in which case, I shall name it. . .Tuesday's To-Reads. Wednesday would become. . .Wordy Wednesday.

Book of the Week: The Plot Against America by Phillip Roth. Ever a counter-culture writer (think Portnoy's Complaint. . .an entire book written as a frighteningly detailed ode to masturbation), Roth's alternate history paints a world in which Roosevelt was never elected to the third term, losing instead to the hugely conservative Charles A. Lindbergh (yes, that Lindbergh, more well known for flying across an ocean than any political activism) who ultimately allies with Nazi Germany and creates an environment in which any American Jew lives in an oppressive state.

What makes the book readable is its utter lack of pretentiousness. Narrated by a young stamp-collector, the book meanders through its themes with the guilelessness only a child can manage. Sympathetic yet flawed characters provide the backbone of the novel, as Newark New Jersey, set between the bustling New York and the politically charged capital provides a bulwark of safe, New England life on the verge of change.

An excellent book for summer reading, with decently spaced chapters, simple language, and a plot bordering between terrifying and thrilling, it's one of those rare discoveries that combines immense readability with literary significance. This is no Invisible Man or Middlesex, but it is a contribution to the American genre in its own right.

And, as a closing comment (from me the self-obsessed narcissist, no longer literary critic) last night, for those of you who missed it, was lesbian night. It involved a friend's boobs, a buttless waiter, and the delightful movie Grindhouse. For those fellow aficionados of zombie films, Rodriguez's Planet Terror was a delight. Imagine watching a video game being played by a friend. The experience was oddly akin to that, with the joy of adding in Bruce Willis, the ever-beautiful Naveen Andrews, Rose McGowan with a frickin' gun strapped to her leg, and the curiously attractive yet altogether too short Freddy Rodriguez.

For those who like to watch hot girls beat up on creepy seriel killers, Death Proof by Quentin Tarantino allows plenty of chest/boob shots for any male viewer. For me, it was a bit long.

And on that note, I have a completely free weekend and absolutely nothing to do. Suggestions?

Hearts and Daisies,
Jess

Summer Reading

In the interest of non-intervention, I will ignore intersibling rivalry, questions of social concern, monetary worries, and the frightening loss of my credit card (don't get too freaked. . .it hasn't been used and I haven't checked all of my pockets just yet). There is some happy news as well: I purchased a new computer today, and it should arrive in 3-5 business days. Hurray for no longer being dependent upon the occassionally funky-smelling ResComp!

So, as the days stretch out before me, with no jobs other than partying hard through the month of May, I find myself with a blissful lack of stress and new deluge of time to spend doing that which i do best: no, not making weird laughing noises, nor stuffing my face, nor even losing things, but rather reading. I completed the first book of summer at 3:15 last night: Atonement, by Ian McEwan.

Let me preface this entry (can it count as a preface if it doesn't arrive until the third paragraph? I see no harm in it) by stating that Ian McEwan is a must-read author for anyone. He writes lyrically and simply, and his words emulate the senses. That being said, he is not a particularly narratively-driven writer--there is no strict plot to his novels, no gradual anticipation building to a climax, but rather a growing unease, a sense of emotional urgency that does not correlate to the actual events of the book. No John Grisham, he, nor even a Nora Roberts, but more of a James Joyce on a meandering stroll through Dublin, with nowhere in particular to head and no sense of direction or destination.

So, yes, I strongly encourage the reading of McEwan. Saturday is a marvelous read for anyone with the desire to truly experience the world post 9/11 in a literary fashion, while Atonement is positively brilliant meta-fiction for anybody interested in that brand of writing.

Up next on my list of summer reading is A Plot Against America by Phillip Roth, Gravity's Rainbow, the short stories of Dubus, Infinite Plan by Allende, and some book by Henry Roth about Jews living in the burroughs of New York. Clearly, these readings will only take me a month, so I welcome any further suggestions of reading material, preferably novels with significance, but not those overwhelmingly difficult to absorb (*cough, Faulkner, *cough).

Similarly, I need to discover a DVD set of television episodes to amuse me on those nights when my lightbulb needs changing and I haven't yet found the time. yet again, all suggestions welcomed and appreciated.

And now. . .I am going to cease procrastinating for the minor amount of studying I must do in regards to my exam this afternoon, and then I am going to go shopping--er, I mean job-hunting.

Much love to my peeps
J

I concede. I need to buy a computer. This is not pleasing in the least, allow me to tell you. After all, computers are complicated machinery. There is RAM and bts and other strange abbreviations and denomers that I cannot even begin to understand.

I miss the days of old technology, that good old stuff that lasts forever. Take the TV in my room. It is older than I am, by an entire year. Sure, sometimes it makes weird noises, and when there isn't a soundtrack playing in the background it supplements with its own irritating buzz, but it still works. Unlike my computer. Which died after a year.

I smell like punch, which makes me think of jungle juice, which makes me feel like I smell like a party. hmm. Speaking of which, I am very jazzed for the month of May, which sounds like it will be one loooong party with all of my similarly jobless friends.

Speaking of which. . .I'm supposed to be looking for a job at the moment. Au revoir, back to the job search.

No Day But Today

Well, that time has finally come. It's hitting me that I just might be graduating this year (imagine that!) and I recognize that communication with people will only get harder and harder. Every stage of life, another person and another land is added on to that vast growing list of people to whom I send Christmas Cards, update on my life, and try to set rumors and gossip straight. The high school friends are worked out, the family receives the email, but now I must add this vast world of college, as well, and church and community.

Thus. . .this blog. Which, perhaps, will be a faithful recording of my life, of what I'm doing, where I plan to go, and what I feel. Perhaps it will become a bookmark for my writings, a way to post things I want read but never published. Maybe it will serve as a candle against the darkness of injustice, a special place to rant about social justice and to plea for solutions. Most likely it will be an unconnected series of ramblings that lead nowhere and explain nothing.

But then, that's what you all expect coming in, isn't it? You know me, and you know that my life is a curious amalgation of things perceived and not, the imagination tied intricately with memory in which what I dream is as real as what I experience, and what I say can be something I believe whole-heartedly or a vague ideal I heard recounted once on a commercial for Campbell's soup (which reminds me. . .I love those commercials for the sleeping pill. You know, the ones with the beaver and Abe Lincoln).

So to conclude this pointless beginning, let it be said. There is no road of life, just an endless series of hurdles, and I, my dear friends, have a pathetic tendency to run into them head-on. But bruises build character, and let's admit it. . .it's just plain old funny when those people fall down.