Sense and Sensibility

Hi All,

I think I must be getting better at this thing, because my posts are getting progressively less - atrociously long. Although, that may be because I haven't had too much to say.

Last Thursday, I met with Professor Susan Crane, and had a really amazing conversation with her. After I finally managed to kind of explain my project to her (basically put words into a sentence that made sense and meant what I needed to say. Have I mentioned that stringing words together is hard?) we talked about how I was going to incorporate World War I, the Holocaust and World War II into my project. This led to some discussion about the differences in time between events and their commemoration in stone, buildings, and museums, etc. and the differences in, specifically, Holocaust survivor memoirs soon after and further from the event itself.

We also talked a little about the Cold War and how that's memorialized, so perhaps expect some kind of discussion about how most of our parents, who grew up during the Cold War, have that experience incorporated into their behavior now, but that kids don't necessarily understand that. Maybe. I'm not entirely sure I want to try psychoanalyzing my parents (love you Mom and Dad).

(Also, I found out that what I'm doing can kind of be categorized under Collective Memory Studies)

After the meeting, I went and saw an encore showing of a very recent production of Shakespeare's Coriolanus, which was originally broadcast by National Theatre Live back at the end of January. It was striking, to say the least. I don't want to spoil anything for those of you who want to see it though, so I won't go into any detail right now about how the Donmar Warehouse pulled off it's version of the tragedy. I will say though, that it was well done, and the actors made the language quite accessible, so it's worth going to, as long as you're not too averse to blood, because there's a lot of it. (The main character, Gaius Marcius, emerges at some point literally dripping with it *shivers*)

There are actually a lot of subtle little positioning, and set things that are done that I'm really looking forward to writing about (and maybe talking about). I love little, subtle sort of things though, so we'll have to see if I get the vibe that discussing them going to go over well, or just go over people's heads and make them bored.

I spent Saturday with the Science Bowl team, competing in Glendale. So, congratulate Team 1 for a job well done. They took 4th overall.

I felt like a bit of a sore thumb today. I went to the Library to get my books, and ended up with two grocery bags full of them. The only problem with that is that I'm pretty sure I'm the only one on campus that does that. It makes me feel so self-conscious, although I honestly don't know why. I'm pretty sure most people are too busy doing their thing to really care about what I'm carrying.

Oscars were this Sunday. I didn't watch them, but pretty much go the highlights from clips and gifs. Kudos to Ellen for being one of my favorite Oscar hosts yet. Pizza, and the The Selfie That Crashed Twitter. So, if any of you saw that cute little screen where the birds are carrying a whale in a net (I think they still use that) it was her fault. Good job. Oh, and This One, because I that really is her motto. She's amazing.

Anyways, the play and the conversation with Professor Crane put me into a thinking kind of a mood. So this week's song is People Help the People by Birdy, who's been playing with Christina Perri's tour. I think she's really good, and I hope this song makes whoever listens to it think just a little more about what the world's like outside of their own little bubble. I'll probably be posting a lot more soon. Some of you might already know why, and therefore why I'm really scared, and excited, and going to be wearing coats instead of 3/4 sleeves again real soon.

Until next time, keep smiling, dancing, and singing (or whatever it is you do in your 'free time').

Ciao!