Belated Booklist

Okay Mariko – This one is just for you.  🙂

For Form & Technique – Essay

THE SNOW LEOPARD
MATTHIESSEN

EARLY SPRING:WAKING TO WARMING WORLD
SIEDL

INTO THE WILD
KRAKAUER

HEAVEN’S COAST
DOTY

NEWJACK:GUARDING SING SING
CONOVER
(This was really interesting, but got kind of tiresome after page 200)
LYING:METAPHORICAL MEMOIR
SLATER
(This sounds awesome, she tackles the deceits of people who write ‘memoirs)
TRUCK:LOVE STORY
PERRY
(He meditates on love while fixing an old truck – I’m excited)

For New Somatic Criticism

POWER/KNOWLEDGE:SEL.INTERVIEWS..1972-77
FOUCAULT
(Foucault is like the only man of interest in grad school, I swear)

ETHICS
BADIOU

NIETZSCHE+PHILOSOPHY
DELEUZE

HOW TO READ NEITZSCHE
PEARSON
(I’m sort of reading idiots guides in graduate school)
HOW TO READ LACAN
ZIZEK

For Emotion, Culture & Rhetoric

COMPASSION: CULTURE+POLITICS OF EMOTION
BERLANT
POLITICS OF AESTHETICS
RANCIERE

AMERICAN COOL

STEARNS

(This sounds neat, but so far the class readings have sucked, so I’m kind of not looking forward to it anymore)

SPACE,TIME+PERVERSION
GROSZ
FRUITS OF SORROW
SPELMAN

FEELING POWER
BOLER
(Boring and majorly about Woman Power)
CULTURAL POLITICS OF EMOTIONS
AHMED

(Seriously DRY but an interesting theory)

Tax Season

Aah February…

New Classes having actual homework due, Valentine’s Day, Tax Season, FAFSA time, School Fees, and more snow.

Well, my taxes, FAFSA, and fees are done.  Valentine’s is planned and homework is being actively avoided, so go me!

Matt and I are doing up a fancy dinner at home for Valentine’s.  I’m very excited about the fancy meal, but not so much about the challenge of cooking a real meal.  We’re doing battered green beans with remoulade sauce from a southern cookbook, steak au poivre (which i’m pretty sure just means with peppercorns), and for dessert we’re doing some form of napolean filled with mousse.  Aren’t you proud of you Amy?

Then sunday I get to write papers and read about my professor travelling around the world to volcanos.  Yay!

that’s it for now,

yours,

alaina

A glowing endorsement for riding the bus…

I walked all the way to the bus stop today and then discovered that I had forgotten my bus pass, which means actually paying $2 to ride the ten blocks to campus, or however far it is, which sucks.  So, I got the money and decided, just in case the driver would be nice, to ask if i could get to campus today without it.  It’s my first day back on the bus for the new term and I was hoping he’d feel generous.  And, he was.  He not only let me on and was totally nice about it, but he also was feeling quippy!

He made jokes to me, and the next guy who got on without his pass because he was new, and the next set of people.  He asked the first one on, “Did anyone order a bus?”  The idiot had headphones on and didn’t appreciate the joke, but I thought it was amusing.

When we pulled into the campus he announced on the loud speaker “Alright, ladies and gentlemen, we are now leaving warp speed and entering CSU airspace.”

And, lastly, when I pulled the cable to make my stop he grabbed the loud speaker and said, “Okay, who pulled that cable?  Whoever that was I’m afraid you’re going to have to exit the bus at the next stop.”

These might not seem that funny, but if you rode the bus every morning in the land of headphones, scowls, and/or ridiculously loud conversations about nothing anyone else ever needed to hear about, you would be able to fully appreciate the lovely break this was.

Best bus ride ever.

Home at Last!

Home at last, Yay!  It was a lovely break but I’m so glad to be restarting my real life.  I guess the more used to being busy the weirder it becomes to relax and have so few obligations.  I will miss the almost entire days mom and I spent watching Veronica Mars and CSI but I am excited to start classes again.  I’ve got two tomorrow, an analytical essay writing class and Emotion, Culture and Rhetoric, which has the best reading list I ever seen since the short story class where we did not have to buy books at all…aaah the olden days.  I have 17 textbooks this term but managed to save probably about $50 by buying them through Amazon, assuming they all arrive and in good shape.

So, Break.  So much happened I don’t know where to start.  On our much delayed way home we got to stop and see Dorothy, Timmy and Clarence which was awesome, it’s been too long.  Then we got stranded on the wrong side of the Blue Mountains and had to stay over in a white-out (practically) in La Grande with a million truck drivers and a hotel full of angry greyhound bus passengers.  It was kind of scary because there were not enough rooms and we hadn’t put down money on our reservation.  But, we got a room were safe and sound and made it very slowly home the next day.

I spent bunches of time with Mom, not enough with Dad, we got to go to the Christmas Party which was very much fun.  I met Vern, my mom’s new boss, whose conversational style resembles a hurricane on repeat.  We recorded tapes on Fox News and the Military channel for him all break…. I never thought I’d intentionally put any TV on those channels but I survived admirably.  I even watched two – count them – 2 football games with Vern and his wife, Laura, because she’s into that.  It was boring, but the conversation outside of the game was interesting and now I can say I’ve seen a play-off football game.  So, go me.

After Matt left I went to visit Amy, Robin, Nanook and Nola in their new house in Veneta.  I’m so jealous – homeownership.  How crazy grown-up my friends are.  I stopped by the Book Bin on the way to and from and bought a ridiculous amount of books in preparation for my eventual nightmarish comp exams.  Mom and I went to Ikea, always sooo much more fun than it really should be.

Matt picked me up in Denver on the 14th and we picked up our new TV on the way home.  It is a Vizio 32 inch and it is so bright and clear and loud and pretty, but huge, it’s still hard to adjust.  There is no buzzing, however, and that is beautiful.  We are watching obsessive amounts of Lost trying to catch up for the new season to start.

Friday I painted another wall in the bedroom of our apartment with Karyn and am totally in love with it.  Who knew one wall could make so much difference in a room?

Today Matt and I drove to Colorado Springs with the dogs to meet my favorite Niki who was visiting a friend there.  We had lunch at a brewery (much to Matt’s delight), took the dogs on walks around the Garden of the Gods, and climbed some giant rocks with great difficulty.  It was the perfect end to the vacation, especially because it was warm and sunny… in January.  I love Colorado weather sometimes.

Now, more Lost.

Tomorrow, classes, buy a notebook, and fill out more job applications.

yours,

alaina

January in Tillamook

So, if the bizarre feet of snow weren’t enough, it is now officially winter in Tillamook.  I.E.  It’s flooding!  Supposedly the Wilson was going to crest at 19 feet and you have to take detours to get to the other side of town.  Woohoo…

Anyway, Becky and I are sitting at Main Street listening to the arcade machine noises (the techno version of The Simpson’s theme) and I’m finally getting to use internet of proper speeds that I’m borrowing from the Radio Shack down the way.  How sad is it when the Starbucks in this town doesn’t even have wifi?

And, now for the exciting part!  I’m typing on my new mini notebook!  It’s an Acer Aspire One, and it’s beautiful and so far very lovely to use.  I think it’s a pretty quick and powerful little thing too.  I’m a little irked it doesn’t come with office to stay, only a 60 day trial.  Grrrr.

Happy 2009!  I’m still in Tillamook for a couple weeks, Mom and I have big intentions for housework and improvements.  We might paint, we will clean out and I’m not sure what all else she has planned.

Okay, much else to do unfortunately and no idea how long this whole borrowed internet thing will last…

yours,

Alaina

This is procrastination

Yes, this is me procrastinating, but I’ll pretend I’m doing it to warm up my typers, and that’ll make it okay,  right?

Thanksgiving with Mom was wonderful, I’m so grateful she came out here and it made the vacation for I think all of us, but most especially the puppies who get many more scraps when she’s around than they do from just Matt and I.

We picked her up Monday night and went to Costco, which was expensive but our freezer became stuffed with food, so we’re just grateful…again.  It’s the theme of the week anyways.  Mom and I shopped all day Tuesday, we got goodies, Christmas gifts and ridiculous amounts of food, and new cushions for the couches and it was fun despite the length of the day in and out of the cold and mistakenly thinking I’d lost my purse in a crowded store!  (Turned out it had just had stuff dropped over it in the cart, thank god.  We cooked all day Wednesday and Thursday, and then dinked around Friday.  Thanksgiving was lovely, we did up the table and had all the nummy food and sparkling cider in fancy glasses and it was just really wonderful to have Mom there.  It snowed Friday night and we had to leave for the airport at 6.30 in the AM, so that was dark, cold and scary, but we got there just fine and Mom got home earlier in the day, so she didn’t have to drive home in the dark, and Matt and I went home and tried not to sleep all day.

All in all, best Turkey Day Vacation ever, and not just because it was a lot longer than the Oregon school versions.  And, now that it’s done and I accomplished almost nothing I should probably get to work.  🙂

yours,

Alaina

Thanksgiving Break

So, Thanksgiving Break has finally begun.  I don’t think I’m capable of being more full of thanks.  I started the break right, with the world’s worst teenage girl movie with Shauna, Karyn and Emily, which was awesome.  The movie sucked a great deal but watching in a theater of people who couldn’t decided whether to laugh or cry was a lot more fun than I would have thought, despite the angry ushers trying to get people to stop holding seats.  We did Rockband afterwards so Matt could have his fix before Emily bailed on us for the rest of the break.  Yesterday we spent cleaning, seriously, the whole day.  This place hasn’t been so clean since it was made, because it sure as hell wasn’t this clean when we moved in.  The whole cleaning process confused and upset the dogs who took to following us around and looking perturbed, but it’ll be worth it when Mom isn’t horrified when she arrives tomorrow.  Which is the most exciting part, of course, Mom will get here tomorrow evening and then we’ll have grocery shopping to do and lots of tv watching to veg through and it’s going to be wonderful.  I’m so excited to see her.  We’ve got our turkey, and I’m going to try to make some of the Thanksgiving stuff early so it won’t be so ridiculous in our tiny kitchen on the day of, and matt and I are going to decorate our live mini tree as a table centerpiece and this Thanksgiving is going to be better than I expected when we came out here.  I’m completely excited.

On the other hand of course, I still have a twenty page paper to write, a 5-10 page paper to write and 8+ books to read for a 6+ page prospectus and annotated bibliography all ideally started before next Monday, so it’s not as lovely as I’d prefer.  They really love to pile it all on at the end, don’t they?  Oh well, I guess on that note I shouldn’t really be procrastinating.  Margaret Atwood scholarship and Judith Butler are impatiently awaiting me, and the angry looking face of Raymond Carver on his book is making me nervous, so I had best begin (or at least flip that Carver book over).

Happy Thanksgiving Break to all of you, whether or not you are experiencing any sort of actual break at this moment!

yours,

alaina

Fun with my Papa

A couple of weeks ago my dad drove all the way out here to come and see us. It was awesome, we did a lot of fun things. The first day we went to the Fort Collins museum, where I learned that Fort Collins was originally established to fight off the Indians, however the Indians in this neck of the woods were not interested in fighting so they tore down the fort and established an agriculture school here due to the rich soil. Later that day we ended up in old down town in the middle of a crazy Halloween costume party. Except the party wasn’t for humans. Instead furry little creatures were dressed up (dogs) in all sorts of crazy outfits (see pic above). Alaina and I agreed that next year we would enter our dogs into the costume contest by dressing them up as little boat captains while we push them around on the boat we make. This is a fitting idea, as the breed of schipperke was once used on boats around Belgium. Also later that day we drove up to Rocky Mountain National Park, and we saw a heard of rams! It was really cool. They were galloping up the side of a very steap cliff. I couldn’t believe how good there balance was!

The second day we took the bikes out and gave the puppies a bike ride. Later that day we went to the campus to see Barack Obama! It was insane. The line to get into the oval was over a mile long! They estimated over 45,000 people saw him there that day. It was cool feeling the excitement in the air, but it also was too bad we weren’t close enough to see him. Just too many people.

The last day we took a trip down to Colorado Springs. The tourist trap of Colorado! There is a lot to do there, and we only scratched the surface. However, we did see a cool place called the Garden of the Gods. Beautiful red rock features jett out of the ground giving a surreal feeling. There is a huge rock (several tons) which balances on a rock below with only a little area to hold it up. Its quite amazing (see pic above). Apparently this feature was created by strong water currents during the ice age. Later that day we saw a the ancient ruins of the manitou cliff dwellers. I have never seen anything like it. Stone buildings were literally gauged out of the side of a cliff for the Indians to live in long ago. Quite a number of Indians lived inside this “Cliff Mansion”, most were farmers, they had quite the assortment of medical herbs.

After my dad left it was back to the grind. I can’t believe this school term is almost over, and then we’ll be back to Oregon for a few weeks. Weather permitting we will leave here December 17th, looking forward to seeing all of you.

*unable to post pics, will post once I figure out problem.

-Matt

the photo contest and the movie debut

So, the contest winners announcements supposedly came and went and I haven’t heard anything so I’m assuming I did not win, but two of my photos were displayed as finalist and I get pretty framed and matted copies of them when they are taken out of the gallery, so either way I’m stoked.  I’ll attach them below for those of you who wanted to see them.

Also, a classmate and I made a movie for a class project.  Matt is the starring character.  The movie is based off of Hemingway’s “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” and is awesome if I do say so myself.  Below is a link to it on youtube if you’d like to see.  And, please, do go see, it’s only been viewed a few times…  My ego is bruised.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FyLBCawkAk

Mucho Excitement!

So, a couple weeks ago I saw an advertisement for a photography competition, and I entered because a professor at WOU told me a long time ago that I should…  And I got chosen as some kind of participant/finalist/something!  I’m so excited!  I’m not sure if this means I won a spot in the actually “winners” or was just accepted for the exhibition but either way I’m practically floating on a see of my own ego, it’s so cool.   And, as follow is the email that you probably don’t need to see, but I need to show off.

I’ll post the picture that got accepted when I find out which one of my submissions it was.

Congratulations!!!!

Your image/s have been chosen to be a part of the 2008 Where in the World is CSU From photo contest. To celebrate, we will be holding a reception on Monday, November 3 from 5:30 to 7:30 in the 1st National Bank Gallery in the Morgan Library with all the images displayed. Refreshments and appetizers provided by COISA—the Council of International Student Affairs.

Congratulations again, and we look forward to meeting you all to hear first hand where all these pictures came from.

Sincerely,

– The Contest Organizers.