Before the days of university I have never heard anyone use the word “keener.” Now it’s everywhere. It had to come from somewhere though right? So someone’s high school must have used “keener.”
Were you a “keener” user?
How I dream for the day when someone calls me a keener and seriously means it. At this rate it is a lost hope, as are my grades.
Okay I really shouldn’t be saying that. Yesterday when I was hanging out with a smart friend of mine I realized, the mindset of especially smart people are very different, maybe it is why they are so smart. She got a midterm back and it was the first time she had ever done so bad. Some of you may be thinking “pft probably over exaggerating one of those ‘Asian fails’ again. Those over achievers =(” but no, it was a genuine way below fail, fail.
And she told me, whilst half speaking to herself: “OK I’LL STUDY AND ON THE FINAL I WILL KNOW EVERY SINGLE QUESTION!!”
Shocking.
To me anyway. I’m sure she meant it in 100% of the meaning of “every.” When I fail or do bad I just honestly tell myself “I’ll work hard and seriously work to the best of my abilities for the next one” but I have never gone for the “I will know it all” mentality.
I really found it amazing how she seriously meant she would aim for it all. Could this be a defining factor from the normal and the brilliant?
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I did more exploring yesterday too.
The subbasement of Korener. What a death trap.
It’s all quiet, you’re lucky if you see a few lively souls around. You’re walking down the wide middle aisle but your wet sneakers are squeaking across the linoleum tiles so you decide to turn into a smaller carpeted lane.
You don’t really know where you’re heading as every path seems to start looking the same. You start walking faster hoping to find a way out. CREAK. What was that? You turn around hoping to find that someone stepped on one of those metal things that enter into the shelves. No one. You face forward again and you suddenly realize the shelves are moving on their own.
You panic, you duck between nearest shelves.
Ok this one was way too narrow to fit completely inside. So you go for the historic Vietnam section. You lean against the the old books trying to catch your heart beat. Suddenly you realize the walls are closing in on you. You’re in the midway point between the two ends of the shelf. You waste 4 seconds trying to decide which side you run towards. You try to yell out and even though the library is so quiet the layers of shelves block out the sound.
But you’re a keener and you escaped.
Those shelves really scare me though. I have a hard time walking between them slowly and calmly.
Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger
ISBN-10: 0316769487
ISBN-13: 978-0316769488
Catcher in the Rye is a fictional novel written by J.D. Salinger. It is available for purchase from http://www.amazon.ca/dp/0316769487.
Catcher in the Rye contains a story narrated by Holden Caulfield. Holden is a 16 year old boy attending a university prep school in the US called Pencey Prep. After failing a bunch of classes and getting in conflicts with other students at the school, Holden gets expelled from Pencey Prep and heads back to his home city of New York. Putting off his return home (and having to explain his situation to his parents), Holden visits many places as well as past and new acquaintances. Through these, an adventure is weaved for Holden–the Catcher in the Rye.
Although a disputable subject matter, I would say that Holden is mentally unstable; however, after talking with people last night, I’m not sure how to classify Holden’s “disorder”. It’s been suggested that Holden is depressed, although I’m not sure that I agree with that suggestion. I would consider Holden to be more along the lines of insane, especially with some of the random thought processes he has and the constant dropping of the term “madman” in the novel. This carries on throughout the novel, although I think the first “wtf” moment is when Holden describes his favorite short story of his brother. I remember it as some “hilarious” story about a boy who buys a goldfish and then doesn’t show it to anybody. Hilarious.
Another word found repeatedly in the novel is “phony”, which is used by Holden to describe virtually every non-child character in the novel. According to Princeton’s WordNet Search, a phony can be more simply described as a hypocrite or a pretender. Ironically, Holden himself is a hypocrite in calling other people phonies. On several occasions during his story, he describes himself as a total pretender. One memorable instance of this is where he gets punched by a pimp, and then describes his “wound” as a gunshot, with his guts spilling out from his stomach. Nonetheless, his lack of awareness of his own phoniness is a good indicator of his bias as a narrator.
Another bizarre thing observed with Holden is his relationship with children (and lack of relationships with adults). As noted before, Holden doesn’t refer to children (at least, not often) as phonies, no matter how much they pretend to be somebody else. Additionally, his two favorite characters appear to be his younger siblings. His view of children emphasizes his displayed lack of maturity and avoiding the process of truly growing-up throughout the story. The only “growing-up” Holden really does is drinking and making sexual references–both of which may be simple tools Holden uses to convince himself that he is no longer a child.
Overall, I found Catcher in the Rye to be an interesting read. The worst part about the book for me was that I got pretty annoyed with Holden at times. Nonetheless, I recommend the book to people interested in reading the classics without dealing with writing that is too difficult to interpret.
Anybody interested in discussing this book, feel free to discuss it here: http://forums.deathofdestiny.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=17.
Also, note to anybody that’s interested: our book club is reading William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury for the month of November. It will be discussed at http://forums.deathofdestiny.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=21.
Currently: Taking a Call of Duty break.
I am SOO SOO SOO sorry that I haven’t been posting. Life is harsh, and I had to take care of things that had to be done before I could share things with you! Now that thing’s are slowly settling down, I’ll get back to my normal postings. These past 2 weeks have been HELL for me. Lot’s of homework, midterms to study for, adjusting to a new living pattern, learning to drive, so much reading, getting sick, and other various stressful situations. The one major problem in my life right now is Motivation, or rather the lack of Motivation. This final stretch with the combination of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has completely shot the mentality I had at the beginning of the year to the ground. If anyone has tips on how to stay motivated, PLEASE share, I am desperate. My idea is to give my mom my Call of Duty CD and not give it back to me until after Finals. But back to my list… here it goes: (Order is in Priority)
- Get a haircut (reshave my head)
- Catch up in Chemistry (I am SOOOOO behind)
- Read and Understand Chemistry Crystal Workshop Package
- Catch up in Physics (Not as bad as Chemistry)
- Practice Driving
- Finish up my latest mix CD (compilation of my DJ Sets)
- Do some Calculus – Predicting Graphs given the function (These are such long questions!)
That looks like a fair reasonable list for this weekend. I work from 5:00am to 1:30pm on Sunday morning, so I can’t overload myself. I’ll post more after this weekend!
I’m not too sure if it REALLY is photographer’s block (similar to writer’s block) or me just being lazy. In all honesty though…I’m getting tired with photography. I’m not tired WITH photography itself, but it’s just that I haven’t really been improving it by too much in terms of creativity. What do I mean by that? Learning new things about photography kept me going. Fun things like Light Painting, Long Exposures, and Flash Photography kept me going. I learned something new each time and each time was fun. I’m not saying that I’ve learnt all that I can because I haven’t. I still have much to learn about flash photography, long exposures, and portraiture.
The thing is…I’m bored. BORED. I haven’t had much time to play around and experiment with photography (maybe I need to find some time to mess around with other photographers…gotta get crackin’ on that). There’s that, and the fact that my energy is just spent. I’ve been going around taking photos of events, people, and places. I have to send photos of events to people and honestly speaking…there are a few just sitting on my hard drive. The files haven’t been converted yet (my fault) and I am not sure how to give them to the right people. There are probably 3 sets of photos I need to send out. It doesn’t sound like much, and it really isn’t but the laziness factor just makes it seem like a whole lot (add studying, homework, and more photos on top and well…yeah). I haven’t done too many landscape shots and my brain is just fried. I honestly can’t think of anything “pretty” to take photos of. Now add my portrait project. Don’t get me wrong, I love it but going up to people, talking to them, then getting photos of them actually drains you more than you think it would. I can’t quite explain it, but by the end of the day my desire to take more photos is just shriveled up like a prune. It sucks. It sucks that I’m already commited to the portrait project. It sucks that it’s raining. It sucks that I have been taking photos EVERY SINGLE day. Irony is, I still love taking photos.
I need a nice kick in the butt from something that’ll get my creative gears running again. I need a break; that’s all I really need. A nice break from taking photos; a nice break from everything pretty much. My mind is essentially a blank; I’ve been running on auto pilot for such a long time now. You know what? I can’t wait until 1st term is over. Not because school will be over for a while, but because I will have time to just forget about everything and take a break from taking photos. Again, I still love photography but sometimes you can have too much of something.
I wish I could get the excitment I used to get from taking photos. I wish I lived on residence. I wish my academics were better. I wish I spent some more time hanging out with friends outside of school. I wish I knew where I was going with life. I wish I didn’t have these thoughts. I wish the world would end up a better place than it is now. I wish for a lot of things, but being the cynical weirdo I am…I don’t know.
I wish I could feel like this again:
I apologize if this has seemed like IS one big rant…I just don’t know where else to put this.
Screw it, time for bed.
Justshootme
Regards,
Rabi
Jennifer Kaban, Camille Israel, Nadine Qureshi, and Eric Ma’s talks got released recently (I got caught up in my second midterm rush so I didn’t have a same day update :( Sorry!), so I updated my previous post and added their videos. Be sure to check them out!
Currently listening to: “Alejandro” – Lady GaGa
Brolly, you had been the best of companions. And now you rest in the garbage can in the Gage lobby, alongside your fallen compatriots, a mere shadow of your glorious polkadotted past. Just like your predecessors, you served well in times of desperate need (not forgetting times of less urgency, of course). Where Mary Poppins impersonations seemed apt, you were the perfect prop. When poking the up button in the elevator seemed more appropriate than simply leaning over, you were always there. Late-night traipsing between Gage and Fairview would have filled me with raccoon-avoiding trepidation if not for your presence, warding them off at arm’s length. And if there was a scene to be made, a flounce-off accompanied by a dramatic jab always seemed to do the trick. Not to mention the following: countless baton-twirls along lonely midnight walks, reaching for objects high-up, smacking irreverent individuals, and my god, accessorizing! What larks we had!
and thus commences the Search, once again, for that perfect walking umbrella of just the right height, with the perfectly curved handle…
I have so many observations to share with you. I know you’re excited.
While I struggle to stay alive with my broken umbrella, until the end of the week when my parents shall bestow upon me another one, I have to conform my schedule to the Community Shuttle. Even then, there is a brief walk from the stop to Irving, and on this path today, I began laughing out loud. In my line of vision, I saw a ratio of about 3:4 broken umbrellas to normal umbrellas bouncing up and down over students’ heads. The winds up to 90 km/hour have really gotten to everyone, it seems. I am not alone!
This sort of analysis reminds me that if you’re new here, you better get to learning the hundreds of different names for different types of rain (definitely a ’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ reference.)
Also, have you ever noticed how HILARIOUS umbrellas are? I mean, imagine yourself in the eyes of an alien. All around you are humans with these strange cloths draped over wires, each their own individual cover from harmless drops of water. It looks like some silly personal invention from the industrial revolution that emphasizes the growing importance of individuality in western culture, except not, because I don’t actually know the origins of the umbrella. It’s probably thousands of years old and Asian.
I hope Rabi doesn’t mind that I’m using his photo from his Portraits of UBC project:
Like the title says.
I’ve been making a fair number of blog posts and I do plan on continuing that, but I really don’t have anything to talk about today except for the fact that it is my brother’s birthday. So Happy 14th Birthday Derrick! (not that you’ll read this…I think). Give him a nice birthday wish or something…totally up to you.
He’s quite the avid snowboarder and I think he can look the part as well.
If you haven’t guessed yet, that’s my brother. We got bored and started messing around with my camera. The set up was essentially my camera, a lamp and a piece of paper. Nothing too fancy. For once in my life, I did some post-processing. I’ll show you the images BEFORE post processing now.
Can you tell the difference?
On a more stranger note:
Yes, it is Jingle Bell Rock. I don’t think it’s too early to start looking forward to Christmas/winter.
Waiting on the rainy days.
Regards,
Rabi
Please for the love of God don’t let this particular blog post take up too much of my time. Say hello to the Point&Shoot camera I shall be using.
It’s about two years old, and yes I just HAD to take a nice pretty photo of the camera. It’s who I am…sue me. So I have started doing what I said I would do…and it’s somewhat difficult. With DSLR cameras, the “bokeh” effect is very much desired and drooled over by almost every photographer out there. If you don’t know the term “bokeh” it’s essentially a fancy a** term that means a “really blurred background”. Like the photo above. It works very well because it isolates the subject. Your eyes can easily see where the subject is and lock onto it. It’s one of the many reasons that make a good photo a good photo.
Some shots I took with the Point&Shoot:
It’s a bit harder using a Point&Shoot for me…in fact it’s quite fustrating because I don’t get that creativity I want sometimes. But hey, if I can learn to take good photos with a Point&Shoot, then well…I would be able to take good photos with a Point&Shoot.
What’s weird today is that I actually had a whole bit written out (the whole pre-blog writting bit) but I decided to not post that stuff because…I didn’t get any good vibes from it. So winging this one…again. Here’s a video that I found quite inspiring.
Fifty People, One Question: New Orleans from Fifty People, One Question on Vimeo.
And that’s it for this post. If you expecting more…you just got ripped off.
Enjoy!
Regards,
Rabi
