I win

Well, I entered a short story contest in Excalibur, York's student-run newspaper, several weeks ago and today when I opened the new edition to the literary supplement, I discovered that I had won. After my initial shock and great pleasure, I was somewhat upset that I had received no warning from the Excalibur offices, but now I realize that I'm happier not having known.
The story is pretty PG because the theme of the contest was the Seven Deadly Sins, so I won't post it to this blog. If you would like to read it and you don't go to York, I plan on scanning the page of the paper with both my winning story and the winning poem, written by a classmate of mine from Gender Studies.
I entered the contest as a diversion. Suffice to say I'm quite surprised that I won. I wonder what this means for my future literary career.

Pondering,

-Laur

My very first internet video (don't get the wrong idea)

Look what I created!!!! I went to this awesome website that I read about in Cosmo (the bible) called www.onetruemedia.com and created this awesome video of Shannon and I and our adventures in Cancun last year!

Photo and video editing at onetruemedia.com

Tell me what you think!

-Laur

Sentence adverbials and other scary stuff

I'm studying for my grammar test right now and all the while I keep thinking "what possessed me to take this course? I could have taken a post-colonial and satisfied all my area requirements, but NO!"

I think you can tell how I feel about this course.

Anyways, I'm sitting here, re-typing my handwritten notes into a chart on my computer and it's boring as all hell. Who made up all these rules? I never believed all my ESL friends when they said that English is one of the most confusing languages in the world. It comes so easily to me, especially in speech, that I could never fathom how any language could be easier. Apparently I was wrong. None of the rules that apply to writing the English language make any sense. Each sentence has so many parts, verb phrases and lexical heads and prepositional phrases and all that. Why didn't they teach us grammar in high school? BOOURNS!

Anyways, today I have class from 2:30 to 5:30 and then I write this test at 7. Hopefully I can get home at a decent time tonight so I can work on analyzing a passage from Macbeth. I watched most of Polanski's 1971 film version of the play yesterday in SMIL, and am now thoroughly traumatized. Apparently he made the move right after his wife was murdered by Charles Manson, so I can see why he may have been disturbed as a director. Scary stuff.

What dagger is this?

-Laur

An ode to Jason Statham

O Jason Statham, you are so beautiful

Whether it's in The Italian Job as Handsome Rob

Or Frank in the Transporter 2,

I'll go see your movies despite your acting non-skills

Just to see you drive a car and save the world.

Not my best work, but I think it gets the point across. If you're not looking for anything cerebral, check out Transporter 1 or 2, or Crank. If you want something a little more witty, check out The Italian Job.

Now, out of my fantasy world and back to work.

-Laur

The man in South Korea who sits on a hill contemplating the meaninglessness of existence says...

I was assigned my quasi-creative final assignment in Contemporary Literature class on yesterday, and I've been contemplating what I'm going to do with it ever since. My friend J sat next to me in class and upon reading the assignment sheet looked at me and said "you need to help me, this stuff is easy for you artsy fartsy english majors!" J is taking this class as an elective. She wants to go to law school (maybe). But now I'm thinking about what she said, and I realize that she was wrong. This creative stuff isn't so easy. The ideas come, but the execution of said ideas is far more complicated.
The assignment says you can do one of 2 things: you can adapt a text or genre from the course into a medium of your choice (as long as it CAN BE DONE) OR you can create your own text/art form/etc from a genre we explored on the course. In September when Stephen, my TA and professor for the course, explained how we could go about completing the assignment I began thinking about what I would like to do. Then, in our last lecture of first semester, inspiration struck me! It was a guest lecture on digital poetics, and I was captivated. I would write my own poem and then animate it using Flash or Shockwave (with the help of technologically-minded individuals that I know, of course). I didn't decide to do it because Stephen said he would be ridiculously impressed if any student attempted it, seeing as this is the first time Digital Poetics had ever been on the course. I did it because I think my words in poetry, which come to me few and far between but intensely when they do, would be really cool in motion.
But now I'm having trouble deciding what to write about. One of the poems we watched was about a man in South Korea who lost his job and renounced all his possessions and family and went and lived in this commune with other unemployed people and sat on a hill contemplating the meaninglessness of existence. The way the poem was animated was so clever, so hilarious, that I almost missed the message behind it. I want to do that, but I can't image what I could write about that would be effective.
The assignment isn't due until March 14th, so I'm taking suggestions. Feel free to contribute your input about what should or shouldn't go into my digital poetry. And comment if you know how to use Shockwave or Flash, PLEASE!

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"

-Laur

Summer dreams

Sometimes I dream about York. Isn't that a strange thing to dream about? This is the York I dream of, the one where the Common is green and lush and the fountain is dancing in the sunshine and the frisbees fly past your head every minute.

Instead campus is decked out like the North Pole, the temperature has dropped significantly and I am COLD COLD COLD!

So for now I suppose I'll dream about York in the warm sun of fall instead of the York Pole.

I hate winter.

-Laur

Time for a haircut, and other such epiphanies

Here is the latest from a batch of Laura and Emily pictures. You can see from her pose why she's so super. Not.

My bangs are too long. Today after a very exciting Shakespeare tutorial involving TA Lee Danes' dark side and the soliloquies of Hamlet the non-revenger and then a very disappointing gender studies tutorial on "Disgrace", I went to work (as quickly as possible as I had half an hour between the end of class and the beginning of shift) and dropped into mind-melting boredom. Other than a few high-maintenance customers and a great conversation about Georgian culture with Marika, there was really no excitement at all this afternoon. So I was standing at the cash desk, twirling my hair around my finger in predictable bored-girl fashion, when I realized that I needed a hair cut. Another $40 down the drain. Or I could do it myself and wind up looking like Boy George circa 1988. No thank you.

Last night at around 2 am I was woken from a dead sleep by a drunken phone call from one of my pub-frequenting friends. Our conversation went something like this:

E: LAURAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!

Me: Hi E. Are you out pubniting?

E: YEAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! (pause) Laura, you're cute heeheehee! LAURAAAAAGHHHH!

Me: E, honey, what time is it?

E: (very long pause) OH MY GAAAAAWD!!!!!!! WERE YOU SLEEPING?????

Me: Well, it is 2:00 in the morning, E.

E: I'M SO SOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRYYY!!!!!!! ARE YOU MAD AT ME?????

Me: No, but I would like to go back to sleep. Are you coming to see me at work tomorrow?

E: YEAH! Sing me a song tomorrow.

Me: Okay, goodnight.

E: LAURA, I LOVE YOU! YOU'RE SO GREAT! GOODNIGHT!

I've been in university for almost 3 years and have yet to attend any sort of pub night. After last night's experience, I think it merits at least one visit. Who knows, perhaps I'll make a drunken phone call or two myself.

GOOODNIGHT!!!!!

-Laur