itunes raid!

From my Facebook profile:

I like good rhythm, 3/4, haunting melodies, Christmas, or Hungarian folk.

Soooo… the annual iTunes raid is over, and I got: (categories are in brackets)

1. Supermassive Black Hole by Muse- the only song of theirs I like (and just to make myself guilty, the only song featured in the idonotreadtwilightidonotreadtwilightmovie) [RHYTHM!]

2. Go & Wherever We Go by Newsboys – more pop.  I already know these by heart. [Rhythm.]

3. Yellow & Death and All His Friends by Coldplay – long overdue. I think I know these by heart, too. [Haunting melodies]

4. This Is Our God by Hillsong-  I didn’t know the Kingdom had such good songsmiths. [haunting melody]

5. Hungarian Dance #1 by Brahms – LOVELOVELOVE the best classical music [Hungarian folk, obviously. Rhythm. Haunting melody.]

6. Serenade for Strings by Tschaikovsky (see below) [haunting melody]

I didn’t really buy this but:

7. Bulletproof- La Roux. It was free on iTunes a while ago, but I just discovered it again. Very cool. [Rhythm. Haunting melody]

those russians

That’s called Serenade for Strings in C major by Tschaikovsky (I know, that’s not how you spell it in English. I don’t care: German is easier to remember.)

I always thought I had no affection for Russia.  I mean, no offense, and I won’t elaborate, either.  However, one cannot deny the brilliance of Tschaikovsky and Dosteyevsky!

I first heard of the latter from a dear friend whom I hardly know, but that’s another story…he is her favorite writer. And I agree: “inspecting” our hosts’ bookshelf yesterday, I happened upon a collection of short stories by Dosteyevsky, and, having read the first four pages of the first one, I can say this: even through the dirty screen of translation, I can FEEL what the dude is feeling, even though he isn’t feeling anything, just, you know, pondering, and having conversations with buildings and such.  And that last sentence didn’t make any sense.  Who cares.

P.S. Musorgsky [spelling???] also radiates genius. Just sayin’.

emily

All this nerdfighting made me want to read. And as someone with a (currently) short attention span, books were somewhat out of the question.  So I turned to poetry, and now I have a love-hate relationship with it, instead of just a hateful one.

I read some Walt Whitman. He needs to read The Elements of Style (by Strunk and White, 191_) and get his punctuation straight.

“Come up from the fields father, here’s a letter from our Pete…”

Emily Dickinson was strange. (An INFP for sure!) She had this great imagination and a love for life, yet never actually did anything but write. She never got married, she never moved, never hung out with friends. She just stayed cooped up in her room (occasionally taking walks) and wrote these really cool poems.

I’m nobody! Who are you?

Are you nobody, too? [note correct English]

Then there’s a pair of us- don’t tell!

They’d banish us, you know!

How dreary to be somebody!

How public, like a frog

To tell your name the livelong day

To an admiring bog!

Poem 2:

There is no frigate like a book

To take us lands away,

Nor any coursers like a page

Of prancing poetry.

The traverse may the poorest take

Without oppress of toll;

How frugal is the chariot

That bears the human soul!

confessions and updates

On Fame/Talent

I have a love-hate relationship with fame.  Like a LOT of other selfish people, I want to be famous, but a small, neglected part of me and my logical reasoning (also usually neglected) tell me that no, I don’t want to be.

So while I am neglecting this logical reasoning, I plot how to be famous.  I am good at many things yet not great at anything.  The problem is deciding which talent (I guess) to nourish.

And here I am stuck.

The easy and best way out is to just create stuff for myself, not in order to be loved.

Enough opening up. It’s hard as it is.

On Selfishness

Gosh, I never realized how much we cover our self-love up.  Mine is usually way too great, but I’m (usually) not stupid, so I do my best to ACT like a selfless person.  I think a lot of people do, too…I’m guessing about 50-60 percent of us?

Updates

I have started to talk like John Green of Nerdfighter fame. It’s scary yet cool.

However, this fanaticism is wearing off.

Concerning this: Isn’t the period of time between fashion trends interesting? For example, when ballet flats came in (in 2007?), everybody who was cool had a pair and everybody who wasn’t eventually got one, thereby making it not so cool. But now, no-one knows what to wear to say, a dress-up occasion, because ballet flats aren’t so trendy now but nothing came in to replace them.  The same with Converse, skinny jeans, and emo.

I am learning to integrate God into my daily life.  Who knew how hard it was? I mean, I’ve done it before, but still, it’s really hard.

Is my theory correct that artists (especially amateurs) are more selfish than the average person?

i the nerdfighter

Lately I’ve been slightly addicted to John and Hank Green: two 20-somethings who vlogged every weekday in 2007.  WOW they’re funny.  My favorite yet is Nov. 26th

Notes: John is a wonderful young adult lit author…very funny and thought-provoking in writing as well as speaking. And he puffs his hair when he’s stressed. And a Nerdfighter is anyone who has ever seen a video of theirs.

for the americans: america and potential

If you open a history textbook, you will probably read about immigrants coming to the USA.  America is called the New World, the Land of Opportunity.

You’ve always heard it, always read it, but you’ve probably never understood it.

If you ask a random person on the street here in Hungary, or any second to third-world country, where they’d like to live, chances are they’d say, “America, if I could.”  In England, we met two men who’d like to move to Australia.  Hungary is full of Americophiles, whose greatest dream is to move to the US. We know someone working for the state department, and his job is to figure out whether Mr. Haddad is really going just to visit his uncle, or is going to stay and work in said uncle’s restaurant. Everybody we know has an uncle or a cousin or a son or daughter in Atlanta or Columbia or Montreal.

Why?

First off, the money is better. My math teacher takes home $6,000 a year. She pays the heating bill with her salary. Other people, not so much. Everyone is hurting.

I don’t think Americans understand the term “Land of Opportunity.”  I’m not talking about claiming land on the prairie. I’m saying, think of something you would want to organize, for example.  You want to organize a… say, a marathon, ok?  Well, you can’t. Not a chance. You want to save the whales? *Snort* Why? Why would you? How would you begin? You’re going to fail.

I was walking home one day, sniffing the air, trying to figure out what people in my town live for.  What are their goals?  What do they want to accomplish in their lives?  What are we all heading toward?  And I came to the realization that the kids here are preparing, getting ready, learning all they can so that one day they can leave this country and go west to look for money and happiness.  And I was unconsciously doing the same.

Why do they spoil their children?  (Besides the fact that it’s impolite to say no here.)  Because the children have potential.  The children have their whole lives ahead of them; the children might be able to leave.  For the adults, life is rough and they struggle to keep afloat in a society and an economy that is determined to bring them down.  Maybe the children will have better luck.  Maybe they’ll find a better life somewhere else.

We have a friend named Gabi.  When she was a teenager, her mother said, “Gabi, I want you to leave this country and go west so you don’t have to lie anymore.*”

What to do, what to do?  How does one fix a situation like this?  Not everyone can go to America or Canada or Australia.  Besides, immigration laws are finicky, especially in the US.  Racism is very much alive, “Why can’t they just go back where they came from?  Why did they have to come here?”

The answer is to stay.  If the best and the brightest leave, the country will never change and the next generation will have nothing else to do but go either.  It’s a hard uphill struggle, and not very fun either, but somebody’s got to do it or the situation will get worse and worse.  Perhaps if people started looking out for their neighbor, not just themselves, or if the politicians weren’t just in it for the money, or if positive change, not money, were the goal, or if people were willing to sacrifice today for a better tomorrow…

But no. Not gonna happen. Because you CAN’T.

*Most Hungarians cheat on their taxes because they wouldn’t have enough money to buy food or pay utilities otherwise.  An average company has a 53% tax burden.

went with the wind

Don’t watch it if you haven’t seen Gone With the Wind. A classic piece of television!

writing a novel

Perhaps this is a bit in the early stage, so I won’t disclose much, and it’s frustrating for you, I know. Sorry.

Lots of people write books. I mean lots of people want to write a book and make a bazillion dollars like Stephenie Meyer or J. K. Rowling or another author with a #1 New York Times bestseller or two under their belt. Anyway, it’s a nice thought, you know, “I’m a published author.” Makes you instantly cool with everybody, even though your book sold 13 copies (although who would disclose that kind of information?). Assuming your book did get published.

So I got the idea for this novel I’m writing from a dress that I designed, inspired by the dresses in a historical fiction flick. I was wondering what it would be like to wear their clothes. (Just to clear things up, I’ve only designed about 5 dresses in my lifetime. I’m not one of those designer-people.) So I made something was similar to what they wore, but not so weird-looking. Anyway, you guessed it, it’s a time-travel novel, obviously. At the time, I just picked a name that I like to replace mine for the main character, who thinks, acts, and talks suspiciously like me, except that her parents are divorced, she’s filthy rich, and she’s English. Very trendy.

I just threw in some characters and then wrote a boring 4000 words with hardly any conflict or interesting substance (because we all know how I am with plots). Then I got bored or something.

You know what saved the book? Twilight’s what saved the book. Yep, I’m pretty much an addict. Not to Edward (although I do find him fascinating*), not to Alice (I love her dearly), not to Jacob (GRRRR)… whatever. I’m a Stephenie-Meyer’s-Writing-Genius addict. Stephenie Meyer is a great writer.*  She can write an interesting conversation that goes somewhere, and she can make you BECOME the main character.* She can make you FEEL exactly what the main character is feeling.* I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that sparked so much emotion (except at the end of A New Song by Jan Karon). Back to my book.

Re-inspired again, I started with the plot. Usually, a plot has conflict, something I have trouble with. And you know what saved the plot? My horrible German teacher. Yes, I was bored out of my mind, so I just started writing character sketches and ended up with some interesting ones, very important to the new plot, which is not yet developed but is kind of twisty-turny. On purpose. Now the question is, how the heck does the thing end??

(An interesting fact about this fanaticism is that Bekah (my American best friend) and Robert (her brother) also got struck by the Muse of I-Want-to-Write-a-Novel-and-I-Have-a-Really-Good-Idea at about the same time. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. Anyway, it’s funny how a bunch of INFs get struck by the same muse at once, because a while ago we were all into film-making, and we still are, but not so hard-core-ly.)

*Midnight Sun. Proof that Stephenie Meyer is one of the most brilliant authors ever. I’m serious, who can write a book and then rewrite it from another (mind-reading) character’s point of view? Not me. But that’s not saying much. Anyway, you can download it legally for free under “Links” on its Wikipedia page. It’s 264 pages long and ends just before the meadow scene day, which is a bit frustrating but well worth it, because it’s so well written that you start living your life like you should be able to hear everyone thinking, and then you become fascinated with the human psyche again.

running

On a side note, my blog looks so chic what with the runway pictures! No longer.

Ok, I’ll admit, although it is in my nature (being an N- iNtuitive type) to scorn exercise (and I have done so on many an occasion), I am now a running junkie. It’s sad, I know.

I run at 6am three days a week. Not being a morning person, of course it’s hard to get up to go do something that gets you sweaty and gross and tired. BUT

1. I can eat more chocolate

2. I have a ton of energy, even when I’m tired. Contrary to my earlier notion, Ns really should exercise, even though it is an S (Sensing- 75% of the population) thing, because, and I’m serious, it really gets the creative juices flowing. Really.

3. Hopefully a better Gym grade on the Cooper test?? We (Cili and I) ran 19 laps around the soccer field on Thursday with 5 minutes total of sitting,  only walking 2 half-laps. Plus the national-champion swimmer-girl finished after us. Yay.

oscar de la renta

Can you name a person of more genius?

I was researching fall fashion shows (no, I was wrong, skinny jeans are still in- nothing else) and I happened upon this man’s show. W. O. W.  I especially fell in love with this woolen dress, which you can buy for a mere $1990 (actually, that’s not much).

Ignore that hat, but check out the shoes.

…And a dress from this spring.

This one reminds me of 50s elegance

Bonus: Fall 2009 show

Spring 2009 show