Facebook: phenomenon of my generation

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last 6 months or so, you've probably heard of facebook. It's a lot like friendster (and I hope more like friendster than like myspace), but intended for college students and based around your .edu email address. Since you guys all already know who I am, I figured I might as well give you the key to my facebook page. Enjoy! PS. It's also in the bar to the right -->

Dreamy

My IHUM Teaching Fellow (TF) is a cool guy. He's a rock climber, and he comes from some mysterious Slavic country. His name is Darko. I mean, how cool is THAT? If my name were Darko, I might have to get everything I owned monogrammed, just so I could read it every day, all the time. Of course, then I'd probably get tired of it, and I'd be screwed. It would suck to be really really tired of your own name. We have IHUM section in gardens, have food in class, watch movies, and get out of class early. I never thought I'd actually like section, but I totally do. Anyhow, he's a cool dude. So I wasn't really surprised when my subconscious decided to include him in a dream. My dreams are notably creative and vivid. I tend to dream about things like putting on a play with old tires and sleeping bags as costumes, or leading an aquatic attack against marauding Navy seals, or that my friend's mother is boiling her Dalmation to give it more spots. What was surprising was that dream Darko and I were going on a date. At the time, it seemed totally natural to be going to see The Shins with my TF, but when I woke up, it left me feeling distinctly...awkward. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time in my meeting with him about my paper trying really hard not to hum The Shins. Curse you, subconscious!

Rain? What the hell?

As I type, it's POURING outside. What is this? I thought it only rained here in the winter! I have been LIED TO!! Seriously, guys, POURING. This weekend, I've been hanging out with Jess S. and Phine, one here from AZ, one who's here all the time, both friends from middle school, and it's been fun. We went to see the Stanford student film festival. One film in particular, entitled Animas, made me eternally terrified of Anna and Ed's EV apartment. It was a short (30 min) horror movie set mostly in an EV apartment, and it was SO GOOD. I have never been so scared in my life. I can only imagine what the director could do with a bigger budget and better actors. Incredible. We then hung out in Burbank with some of Phine's dorm friends, all of whom were very cool (if also mostly very drunk. Edward 40-hands was a main feature of the night, starting before we got there.). All in all, an excellent evening. There were magic tricks, psychology lessons, ninja dancing, and beanbag juggling. Drunk smart kids are really funny. I don't know if it's a Stanford specialty or not, but I'd imagine that the scene is very similar at any number of upper-crusty schools. When Stanford students drink lots and lots of beer, many of them start to talk about their classes. They'll give you anything from a detailed inventory of South American economics to an evolutionary psychologist's account of why guys talk about girls, and why being the subject of such conversations puts you at an evolutionary advantage. Then they tell you what their parents do for a living, what they're majoring in, what THEY plan to do for a living, and why. And then, of course, you also hear gems like, "Anna Ruby, is it boob time?"

Paper Done!

I've just finished my second paper for my PWR class ("The Visual Rhetoric of Photography") and I feel much more relieved than I had anticipated. It's been hanging over my head for so long that I really hadn't thought about what it'd be like not to have it hanging there. It was about Micha Bar-Am, an Israeli photojournalist, and my paper was about his book called Israel, a Photobiography. Anyhow, I'm done with it, and it's submitted online, finally! However, this means I can proceed freely to my next paper assignment, which is twice as long as the last one. I basically have to start writing my half-length draft (which is due Wednesday) tomorrow. One down. One. More. To. Go.

And a little bit...not.

Now that all the draw crap is sorted out, I've been left feeling kind of deflated. I mean, I know that I can't be friends with these girls anymore, and, to be honest, we're all getting really good at ignoring each other, but I still feel like I've wasted too much time and effort on them to just watch it all disappear. I'm not mad anymore, I'm just wistful. They weren't always awesome, but they were what I had, and now that I'm starting all over again, I feel like I've lost time. People who made better friend choices, or maintained their friends better, or SOMETHING, have a head start on me. Sure, I have friends, good friends, even, but I still kind of feel like an interloper in their world. They've been nothing but nice, but now I'm paranoid. I find myself second guessing every single phrase, and I just wish this whole awkward phase were OVER with. I want to hit rewind and choose the right friends this time. I want to scream at my fall quarter self to just OPEN my freaking EYES and pick the people I actually like and the ones who actually like me instead of the slightly cooler but distinctly less nice alternative I actually went with. Who cares if it's an ever so slightly less cool social strata?! Hey, this way I'm the cool one. Plus, they're actually nice to me. And they, y'know, want me around. As Little Red Riding Hood would say in Into The Woods,

And I know things now, Many valuable things, That I hadn't known before: Do not put your faith In a cape and a hood, They will not protect you The way that they should. And take extra care with strangers, Even flowers have their dangers. And though scary is exciting, Nice is different than good. Now I know: Don't be scared. Granny is right, Just be prepared. Isn't it nice to know a lot! And a little bit not...