Jared, i hate you for being done with uc apps.
of course, instead of working on said application (due monday night, haven't started the essays - procrastination YEA!), i've gotten myself all worked up into a lather over a new blog idea. still check it out i think it's fantastic -
TASPER VOICES FOR THE HOLIDAYS!
okay so if you go to the blogger front page there's a notice for a free trial of something called audblog, which most of you skipped over in your haste to post. however, being my easily-distracted-computer-geek self, i investigated. audblog is this service where you call on the phone and record a message, which is then automatically posted to your blog. the deal is that each member gets a free trial, not each blog - so, conceivably, each of us could call and record a message to the blog for everyone to hear. how cool would that be? it's four minutes long, so we could get a song from all you musicians out there - yay, eunice-piano! - with some time to spare for holiday greetings.

i was thinking it would be cool if everyone could record a little bit of what they've been up to - so, like, john could play us a song he just wrote, and brian could gift us with a little bit of monologue action, and olga could read us a poem, and adam could like talk crazy latin, or play us some chords on his NEW guitar (or he could just post), and yablon could spew hipster pretention all over the phone - well, you get the drift. or, alternatively, that's really geeky and no one has to do it. (although could you please?)

CORRECTION: dammit, the free trial is only one minute long. still, that's enough time for a little snippet of song, at least...

me and tae-yeoun thought it would be nice to have a deadline, so everyone will do it and we'll get lots of these rolling in like presents. i picked the first day of hanukkah, completely arbitrarily (well, also to show a little jew crew pride.) that's three weeks away, which gives you plenty of time to, like, rehearse and stuff (just kidding!). of course, as tae-yeoun says, "Meaning, everyone will in the true TASPian sense post like a day after the deadline."

okay so if you're a quarter as excited about this as i am, you're going to want to go do it now. you sign up for the free trial here. don't worry, they don't ask for your credit card number or anything, and i have their word that they won't give out your number (blogger's pretty good about that stuff). one thing - it IS a long distance call, which kind of sucks. but it's short, and think of the money you'll save, not having to call each and every one of us! um...please?

p.s.: happy birthday john!

posted by Kelsey   [9:29 AM]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOHN!

I've been listening to Verdi's requiem working on two majorly-procrastinated paintings at once ("Tae-Yeoun, why is it that you always use the same colors in all your paintings?") and I thought of you. Happy birthday.

Tara- the title bar read 'reasonably remarkable' for the first week of the blog until Kelsey came and fixed the formatting, and it's been 'here to expose ourselves' ever since.
Adrian- leave it to Adrian to compose a villanelle about a bird. :) Thanks, I enjoyed it. However, I did not enjoy The God of Small Things - what brought you to ask about it?
Alex- pretentious Tae-Yeoun only started looking for Coetzee when he won the Nobel. If you're interested, the Koreans pronounce it "koh-cheh" because they have difficulty pronouncing foreign names more than two syllables long.

I've picked up all your mannerisms and pretend they're mine - naturally I also do the 'well' thing and it annoys all my friends because they expect me to say something meaningful afterwards but I don't because Brian's 'well' stands on its own. I'm reminded of that exercise we did on the third seminar or something (I think it was our last seminar in the house before we moved to the seminar room) where we had to take a cliche and write a poem out of it - Brian's started with:

All's well that that ends.
Well, ...

Oh, while we're stressing over college apps, guess what Tae-Yeoun did! (I refer to myself in third person when I'm too ashamed of being me) You know the page on the Common App where you list your extracurricular activities and work experience? There's a question at the bottom, UNDER THE WORK EXPERIENCE HEADING, that asks which of "these activites (extracurricular and personal activities or work experience)" is the most meaningful to you and why. Tae-Yeoun's answer, which she sent out to her common app colleges a month ago, was:
having resided in the Philippines for nearly twelve years, I have not had many opportunities to find work, as under Philippine law foreigners under 18 are not permitted to hold jobs.
The entire guidance office took turns laughing at me. So now I'm miss none-of-my-activities-means-anything-to-me-because-I-don't-get-paid-for-it.

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [10:24 PM]

Yes Merry Thanks Giving to all of you.
I like so many am guilty of reading without posting, so I'll say this before I return to applications... Where does everyone want to go and why? Essay should be no more than 500 words I joking just curious.
I got distracted from the Stanford App and decided to do my English homework (boy am I a nerd). However, I'm really happy with this Villanelle:

Imperfect nature within us all lays
Like the peacock's dazzlings for his mate.
Form Follows Function, consider always

That beautiful bird drags his tail most days-
For small days of pride, must suffer their weight.
Imperfect nature within us all lays.

The tall tail tells his health through dancing craze
To goggle eyed females; fitness is bait.
Form Follows Function, consider always.

"Beware of the Serpent," so goes the phrase;
You'd takes off his head and glorify hate.
Imperfect nature within us all lays.

Viper lacks legs, thus, on his stomach lays.
The brittle boned dove uplifts in her flight.
Form Follows Function, consider always

Not even your Lark for the Serpent prays.
Nor for scavengers, dank dutied at night.
Form Follows Function, consider always;
Imperfect nature within us all lays

... Has anyone read The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy?

posted by Adrian   [5:59 PM]

Thank you, Kelsey, for the updates.
Every time I contemplate posting I am torn between expressing how much I love you guys by posting and trying to fool you into believing I have a life. But I don't think I've been too successful in either goal, and I just end up posting a lot of really big chunks of text about nothing in particular.

BUT I'm actually posting because I knew it was Thanksgiving, and have people to wish Happy Thanksgiving to! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Although no one asked, how Tae-Yeoun spent Thanksgiving in the Philippines: While our school library celebrated Thanksgiving by giving all of us an amnesty deal - we could return all our overdue books today and no fines would be charged, we had an academic bowl match against the missionary school and the British-International School (as opposed to American-International, which is our school - I've never been able to figure it out) and I thought of Matthew, captain of his acabowl team whose members included his older sister Emily, and of Eunice, who had her team dress in lab coats for Science Bowl. Whoaaa run-on sentence. One of the questions was about Mordred, and suddenly Lauren, a junior on the team, turned around and said: "Hey, have you read The Once and Future King?" As much as I complained about the book over TASP I got so excited and squealed and jumped up and down for ten minutes or something. And answered too late and got points knocked off. - -;; <-- addition to the smiley face archive; the cultural differences reflected in Asian/Western keyboard-art smiley faces... where are you Adam?

Well Kelsey, it turns out that I've probably had lots of turkey in my life even before TASP without knowing it was turkey. But if you don't count turkey ham - because you never know what they put in ham anyway and don't really want to care - no, I've never had real turkey.

To end the post with a question - now that I know when Thanksgiving was for this year, is it the same day every year?

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [5:49 AM]

before i sleep, a bit of ammunition for eunice's threats of violence.

days since posting.
alex borinsky: 20. we all discussed your story oh-so-thoughtfully, alex. don't you even care?
tara: like 6 hours. but since you never sleep you should be posting twice as much as the rest of us.
dr. chapelle: yay dr. chapelle for posting! (p.s.: you still owe me a ddr rematch.)
aimee: 39. what, is hawaii more exciting than us?
jacob: 37. it's the break, jacob, where's your post?
jared: 3. excused from my scorn (dammit, i really wanted to make fun of santa rosa, too.)
adam: 8. how was the latin exam? did they throw money at you, or what?
mónica: never. *gasp!* mónica where are you?
olga: 3. you're still evil.
tae-yeoun: 4. the timezone thing probably makes it actually either 2 or 47.
adrian: 27. i know this is going back a ways, but i am DYING to hear more about this girl who made you turn religious. adrian? in a church?
bryan: 88. despite my repeated attempts to rile him up enough to post, our beloved colorado savage seems to have fallen off the face of the earth.
susan: 3. damn, monday was a good day for the blog.
jamie: 105. oh, come on, college can't take up THAT much of your time.
john: 8. your last post barely counts though (unlike my massive epics, it didn't take up the entire internet.)
natashia: 2. good girl.
dr. randall: never. tell us stories about your new engineering students, or we'll stop loving you.
matthew: 100. ¿dónde está tu poste, mateo? (i'd also like to know about your postre.)
brian: 28. i'm convinced you're dead of the flu.
alex yablon: 3. rock.
eunice: this inspired display of geekiness/psychotic obsession was all for you, baby. keep the blog-love rollin'.

posted by Kelsey   [12:18 AM]

faux real? that's so....electroclash. i dig it heartily, of course, and would like to buy any merchandise that may be available.

anyone who applied to deep springs DEFINITELY needs to apply to st. john's. in the words of jacob, "it's like deep springs only with less pitchforks and more vaginas." i really wanted to write some eloquent paragraph to convince all you guys to apply and then go there and we can all have fatty parties and get drunk while discussing philosophy together, but then i was like "wait! i just remembered! i'm not eloquent, and none of the taspers like drinking OR philosophy as much as i do!" (except for maybe bryan, that crazy colorado savage.) but. i was trying to describe what i liked so much about it, and i realized that all the things i've been looking at in colleges - class size, majors, advising, living communities - were all factors that i hoped would contribute to creating a type of environment that was exactly what i saw at st. john's. ugh that was the most obnoxious sentence i've ever written. anyway the point is that even if you're like "eh" about the school (like i was a few weeks ago) if you can get a chance to visit you should.

ooh yay new tasp topics. what we're all really waiting for is the brochure though. like yablon (i can't refer to you as alex anymore, there's no reason why not) i think the michigan topic is too broad. the cornell I one sounds like a lot of old english/shakespeare type stuff, which i am definitely not sophisticated enough for. which leaves cornell II and austin. of course, it's mighty hard to beat the adpi house, but my hypothetical year-younger self (who, somehow, has the tasp experience anyway) is somewhat tempted by the glamour and allure of ithaca. don't get me wrong, i loved austin (and the adpi house!) and every single one of you, but sometimes i wonder about how cool it would have been to have 16 more amazingly talented bright and ridiculously cool people in the house. then again, as yablon (it's set, you'll never be alex again) pointed out, there would have been fewer opportunities to get to know people. but - more people to talk shit about, which i freely admit is my only real talent. anyway i had a question that went here, but it was really bad so i deleted it. i'm ass-terrible at asking questions anyway (because i'd much rather just talk about myself, as you all know) and there's a couple of really good ones up already, so i'll answer those.

like tara, i will also readily vote for whomever the democratic candidate may be (any flirtations i had with third-party affiliation were scared out of me by the events of this past presidency), but for a much lazier reason - i won't be eligible to vote until after the primaries, so i've paid no attention to the democratic nomination race. how much do i suck, huh? although i did follow every sordid detail of the recent recall here. look man, if it ain't got a kennedy or groping allegations, you're not getting me to tune in.

natashia, i heart blake. the beats loved him, didja know? tell me more about this colorado business - i couldn't find a whole lot on google, but i know enough to know that if david horowitz is behind something it's probably bad news. as for state quarters, can i implore you all to gaze upon for at least a brief second the incredibleness of alabama's state quarter:

okay. stop. scroll back. look upon it again. they have, understandably, chosen to represent their state by honoring one of its most famous natives - but, the artist, in completing the admittedly difficult task of fitting his depiction onto the one inch diameter canvas, HAS CUT OFF HELEN KELLER'S LEGS. there is nothing in your pocket funnier than that right now - i'm sorry, but the u.s. mint has pulled off the punchline to the best helen keller joke ever.

and with that bit of crassness, i'm going to bed. happy thanksgiving everyone (tae-yeoun! have you still never tasted turkey?)

posted by Kelsey   [11:40 PM]

Procrastinating and sleeping are two of my hobbies, though I am something of a dilletante when it comes to the latter. I should be writing my English essay right now, but, "hey" I thought, "I'm from TASP, after all. 30 minutes max, right?" Wrong. So now, I indulge myself in the first of my hobbies, and, in doing so, leave less and less time for myself to cultivate the second. A horrible cycle.

I reread some of Borges yesterday for fun, thought about TASP again (thank you so much Tae-Yeoun, I now have those seats firmly implanted in my memory), fell asleep while reading the republic, and dreamt about an "ideal state" composed of TASP members inside a series of hexagonal halls. Jamie was a Guardian. The rest is fuzzy, but the very image of all of us wearing togas surfaced fond memories.

Now, it is time for me to assume a task that I should not rightly take (because I almost fit in this group myself). I demand that the people that haven't blogged at all this month (or even longer!) do so! This is not a death threat, but if there is no response, blood will be spilled...to say the least...You know who you are! Do not make me name names!!!

(It's really difficult to find a question to end with, especially after that threat--err--strong urge. I'll end my next blog with a question)

posted by Eunice   [7:01 PM]

Sorry to post twice in a row, but if you haven't checked yet Telluride Association has updated their website and the topics for next year's TASPs are out! Summary: the marks of mysterious creativeness we have left behind in Austin is now to mingle with The Invention of the Human: The Problem of the Modern Subject. Cornell is looking at He Said, She Said: The Battle of the Sexes in Medieval and Renaissance Writing and Pleasure and Danger: Bodies in History, Science, Literature, and Philosophy, and Michigan: Race, Gender, and Class in American and British History. Because I forgot to end my last post with a question, here it is: if you were to choose a seminar topic from the above choices, which would it be?

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [7:22 AM]

Dear Eunice, and anyone else who's forgotten the colors of the seat covers:

This is the best I could do.



I seem to forget the A-D-Pi house in terms of distances first - I remember still images of familiar places very vividly, but can't seem to connect the images in a coherent house; subtly at first and now progressing towards a Dali distortion, I've forgotten the number of steps in the staircases, the distance from the bottom of the main staircase to the dishwashing area, how low the ceiling of the Secret Headquarters is (Aimee! I'm not using past tense!). Forgetting these small distances makes me all the more aware of the tremendous distance between the Philippines and the U.S. and this makes me very very sad.

Okay I'm done sulking. I finally figured out when Thanksgiving was, so I get to wish all of you Happy Thanksgiving!

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [9:08 PM]

Having logged on for the third time after Wednesday, I am slightly disappointed that there have not been any new entries, wondering if other people are being "stalker-ish" like me (logging on,reading, and having nothing groundbreaking to say). It almost seems as though the frequencies of entries increases and decreases in cycles--one week may have 15 entries, the next, 4. So, to break off the slump in blog entries, I've decided to drop my passive reading and "blog" if you will.
Alex Y--awesome band name; I am the second TASPer fan of your band--if you ever come out with a CD, make sure to send one to me! Perhaps we can compile a TASP soundtrack with all the other music players from TASP to go with the Tae-Yeoun's "extension" of the sixweekbook. That would be quality.
On a more general note, I feel as though the "TASP experience" is starting to slip through my fingers. I still remember every single one of you, but, frighteningly enough, I can't seem to recall the color of the dining room table seat covers. Small insignificant detail? Not at all. I think they were yellow, and striped, but my very uncertainty shows that, in the long run, I will remember less and less about TASP. So, to end my blog with a question, would someone please tell me what color the dining room seat covers were?

posted by Eunice   [3:39 PM]

Eunice I'm from West Springfield not Boston and you know it! Anyway I am gonna be heading over to Boston University for some latin exam. They're offering full and half-tuition scholarships to the top scorers which is incredibly generous for one test. So fingers crossed...I recently gave my friend my copy of The bell jar to read and I wish Ic ould make some insightful comment...lol I was trying my best to remember what you guys said and than steal it shamelessly but my memory isn't good enough. So I'll just stick to copying the robot dance.

posted by Adam   [9:06 PM]

John Says:

Alex! Your band name is the coolest ever. I am the first TASPer to officially say I am a Faux Real Fan.

Jared - yeah, so I kinda said the Deep Springs App was "easy" before I got to the hard parts. Kudos to you for applying, I think we would be complimentary Deep Springers out there in Nevada. Did anyone else apply?

posted by john owens-ream   [12:29 AM]

String Theory! I'm terribly uninformed about it...picked up bits and pieces from Science Bowl practice, but non to0-canny about it myself. It's got something to do with vibrating "strings" of energy, that connect everything...and I know its supposed to have 5 flavors, or smells, or however that goes (sort of like Strawberry Quarks, but cooler). Yesyes, lets talk about string theory! This gives me the incentive to procrastinate and study something completely unrelated to school...Oh, and I meant to ask, has anyone read The Dancing Wu Li Masters? Is it good?

posted by Eunice   [4:30 PM]

Who wants to discuss string theory???
For anyone who has the time, here are tidbits from 'The Elegant Universe,' a documentary my friend recommended to me two minutes ago. Apparently Steve Weinberg talks string theory in the later episodes - in at least "Too Elegant to be Wrong?" which I've just watched. "he looks more like a businessman than a physicist," my friend says.

In other news, this morning I was delighted to see the Telluride Association letterhead on one of the papers cluttered on my counselor's desk. She has to start recommending prospective candidates from the junior class for next year's batch (has it been that long?) - and I got to pitch in my suggestions, oh the power trip.

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [9:03 AM]

I got back home from Oberlin yesterday night--feeling enormously guilty at the pile of evidence (the fruits of my procrastination) sitting on my desk. Woe is me. Oberlin was what I expected, small, cold, windy, but cheery and friendly at the same time. I went bowling at 12:00 a.m., sat and watched the magnificent opera, "Hansel and Gretel," put on by the "Obies." A couple interesting points from my visit:
1.) A fellow Oberlin Prospective Scholar (affectionately dubbed "prospies" at Oberlin--they have a strange relationship with the suffix -ie) named Kantara knows you, Alex Y! I told her again and again to say hi to you, I hope she has.
2.) After meeting Kantara, I decided to ask everyone if they knew people in their respective cities: Santa Rosa, San Francisco, Chicago, Omaha, Boston, etcetc...So, now all of you are famous at Oberlin, at least by name, due to my incessant chatter.
I promised to talk about the Hemingway, but duty calls. I'll talk about Hemingway tomorrow.
Good Luck, Deep Springs applicants! Who are all of you, by the way, and what distinguishes Deep Springs?

posted by Eunice   [3:04 PM]

My Weekend of Hell is beginning to come to an end, only to give way to Week of Hell - my ToK essay, which I've [theoretically] had all semester to work on, is due in thirteen hours and I have 229 words (or Tara's way, 229:1600 = 0.143) and a huge stack of TASP readings I'm sifting through for useful bits of ToKness.

It's amazing how much I've forgotten - I came across the Bordieu, thickly underlined everywhere, and wondered when and how I'd managed to read it, because I don't remember anything from it but that Monica made us all raise our hands and keep our hands up if we'd read the list of titles she read out, and the first book on that list was the Bible.
But then again, there's a special poignance to rereading this stuff when I'm supposed to be writing away - firstly, the second reading makes the text so much easier to understand. And of course, even in the cases where the second reading doesn't clarify anything (as in the section from Aristotle that was 75% Greek with footnotes) it raises exclusively Telluridian memories of laughing over the passage.

Although I'd love to bring up some relevant discussion on literature, I'm proving myself a victim of commercialization and pointing your attention to amazon.com's [relatively] new search-inside-a-book service. Amazon has "only" scanned 100,000 books so far, but it's amazing when the book you're looking for is one of them. In my desperation I'm quote-dropping like crazy in this essay, and this service is saving my life (even though it goes against scholarly convention, I dont' know) - because I'm in panic mode I can't afford to weigh its pros and cons but for the moment it's another triumph for technology. I recommend you all try it.

Congratulations to the Deep Springs applicants who have that ungodly number of essays out of the way.

Missing you, thinking of you--

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [1:40 AM]

Hello fellow TASPers!
Oberlin has 189 Steinway pianos and one of the best NMRs in the country!
This is a sleep-deprived, half-frozen Eunice in Oberlin speaking, after a long and tedious plane flight (thank goodness it was free). Apologies for my friend's intrusion. Anyhow, a few thoughts on the Hemingway--though they will not be well formulated ( I left my copy in the airport)--
The "girl" is the one that epxresses wants, feelings, etcetc, whereas the "man" is the one that presents expository facts. (there are a few exceptions). Anyhow, the girl never physically moves beyond the bar's bead-curtained room, but the man does, so perhaps they represent two different aspects/perspectives/voices within one individual. The fact that they conflict with one another in their expressed wants ("I don't care about anything but you" "I don't care about me"), and how their arguments build off one another's, shows some internal conflict within the collective "individual." Sorry for not being able to support my points with the text. I promise to further support my point after I get home on Sunday.

posted by Eunice   [2:33 PM]

Hi, this is Eunice's friend Nancy....we're at oberlin right now in the cool new science center which we actually got a personal tour of (yeah....personally....).
Anyhow, we're going to prove our friend Holland (yes as in the country Holland!!!) that there is a lot of info on Oberlin online.... :-p

byebye

by the way, I have a recording of Eunice playing the piano on my cell phone...call me if you wanna hear it ;)

For those cool people with AIM, IM me at nan12786
or e-mail me at nancy@nancynguyen.com
or visit my website at http://nancynguyen.com


ciao!

posted by Eunice   [1:13 PM]

"Who is this Hemingway person at all?"
"A guy that keeps saying the same thing over and over until you believe it must be good."
"That must take a hell of a long time."
--Raymond Chandler, Farewell My Lovely

posted by Kelsey   [8:33 PM]

posting two times in a row, how much do i suck.

the hemingway: like tae-yeoun, i'm pretty sure the operation is an abortion (although i really can't figure out the "let the air in" bit either). besides the "anybody but you" line, there's a lot of other clues - for one, the title, a white elephant being defined as "a rare, expensive possession that is a financial burden to maintain" or, in the christmas-time white elephant gift sense, an object that is no longer wanted by its owner. (there's also the literal sense which john picked up on - the white elephant is sacred in india, which i think further emphasizes the tension at work.) also, the setting of the train station (mentioned by tae-yeoun) - she's looking at the fertile side, with fields of grain and trees, when she starts with the "and we could have all this" bit, then she moves back to sit with the man and "look[s] across at the hills on the dry side of the valley" - sort of a fertility vs. barrenness thing going on there.

i like your thoughts about the train station, tae-yeoun. i think it's possible (actually, i think it's implied pretty heavily) that not only are they not sure what they're waiting for, but that they're waiting for different things. the station is "between two lines of rails" - just rereading it now, i notice that he moves the bags from one side of the platform to the other. have they switched directions? it's not really clear if he's switched from the dry side of the valley to the green or vice versa, just as how no decision is made at the end of the story. it seems like the others "all waiting reasonably" are seen through the man's eyes, and not the girl's - perhaps because, in his eyes, her emotions/actions are entirely without reason; he knows "it's perfectly simple," so why can't she understand?

frankly, tae-yeoun, the story irritated me too. yes, it's mysterious and intriguing and all that, but i have trouble finding much underneath that front. without the flimsy mystery of the unnamed operation, it's really not a very good story - imagine, if you had known from the beginning the topic of contention, how you would have felt about the white elephant metaphor and the dry/fertile valley images. minus the riddle of the abortion, it struck me as rather heavy handed. he wants her to have an abortion. she wants to keep the baby. so what? i didn't really feel compelled to keep reading except for the whole mysterious operation schtick, which strikes me as pretty cheap and manipulative. yep, i'm feeling used by a nobel prize winner (again - no more questions, mr. weinberg?) i don't really know what to think of - i really liked for whom the bell tolls, but i couldn't stand the sun also rises. hey adrian, ever been to his house or whatever (it's in oak park, right?)

by the way alex, thanks for the article on kafka - i really liked it. my question of the post - has anyone else read the trial? just finished it and i'd love to chat it over with a tasper. yeah, i know, that's a crappy question, but oh well. ooh! here's a better one: what did everyone do with their veterans day? let's hear about your various acts of monday-night debauchery...

damn, i really wanted to write about st. john's tonight, but i've got a crapload of homework and i've already blogged way too much. well, i will collect my overly-excited thoughts on the subject and post something later (it would be nice if i'd let other people get their blogging turns, wouldn't it?) anyway sorry for blabbing so long and so much. love peace and chicken grease (wow i haven't said that since 6th grade).

posted by Kelsey   [9:48 PM]

hello from santa fe. when i flew in i switched planes in salt lake city (mormons, wtf?) and i was sitting in the terminal waiting for my plane to albuquerque and they announced now boarding on a flight to omaha and then i looked up and at that same terminal there was a flight to denver, a flight to cleveland, a flight to minneapolis and - the kicker - a flight to austin. i so almost hopped a plane to see one of y'all.

in other news i have absolutely fallen deeply madly in love with st. john's and i don't think i'm going to apply anywhere else and i think all of you would think it's wonderful and you should all apply and we'll all get in and be in freshman seminar together and it will be grand. elaboration + thoughts on hemingway tomorrow-ish.

posted by Kelsey   [1:25 PM]

The Hemingway honestly confused me. I read it Sunday night I think, while my Bangkokian friend was telling me about a canoeing trip she went on for ToK (canoe, ToK, what's the relevance?) and it took me a second reading to figure out that the story wasn't set aboard a boat, and that nothing in the story even suggested boat in the first place. Hmm. I was under the impression that the operation was an abortion, from the line "But I don't want anybody but you. I don't want any one else." So John, I think that was the problem, although I have paid too little attention in Grade 8 Wellness to know what it means to "let the air in." ALso, how it was "man" versus "girl" - I took it as comment on the girl's naivete and and her [implied?] initial belief in the possibilites of the world - i.e. the white elephants. Sometimes the way she speaks is childishly stubborn ("I don't feel any way ... I just know things," and my favorite: "would you please please please please please please please stop talking?") and everything the man says sounds like he's just humoring her.

I found the setting of the story particularly interesting - perhaps because it took me so long to figure out where it was set - if the story is of a breaking of ideallistic beliefs / coming of age type the train station is that transition phase where they're waiting for something but don't know what. [when they finally realize, to quote John, 'the futility of what they are both chasing after,' where can you go from there?] "He looked up the tracks but could not see the train... He drank an Anis at the bar and looked at the people. They were all waiting reasonably for the train." - pretty lines, and I think it sort of relates to what I was saying, but actually I don't know what to make of it. So, there's my question: what does this mean?

I wanted to end the post with the question but I just want to voice out how annoying this story was when I read it. Because it's been recommended by a TASPer I don't want a pass a judgement too quickly, and don't think I understand the story enough to pass a valid judgement anyway, but it really, really annoyed me. John talked about love in the story - I've tried to find it but I found no hint of any sort of tender feeling in it one might be tempted to call love. I too was never too fond of Hemingway, although I probably haven't read enough of him to appreciate him as John does, but every now and then the prose gets too dry for my taste. Mmm, that's it. End-of-post question is at the end of the previous paragraph.

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [10:23 PM]

John Says:

Alex- I don't know why you don't like Hemmingway, I always find him just grand. In this story I think he is doing what he always does so well, explore human nature. I don't think there is any deep philosophical point or metephore in this one, correct me if I'm wrong anyone, but in this I think good ole' Ernie is taking a look at how people can manipulate the ones they seem to love through those very bonds of love. Whatever the operation is, the man clearly wants it to happen and the girl doesn't, but apparently will for the man's sake (and it is "man" and "girl" because that's what he calls them, giving the man a slightly higher intellectual standing in the story it seems to me).

Also, in the intro piece of narration Hemmingway describes them as "the american" and "the girl with him" which makes me see the American as a sort of traveler who has picked up this girl along the way and she resents it with her "no you wouldn't have" comment. The symbolism of the white elephents themselves seems to me to be the futility of what they are both chasing after, but will not find in Barcelona- she is searching for some sort of peace in him and his love, he is searching for ever greater new adventures (like the beer, or the white elephants) but will never find them either. Correct me if I'm wrong though, maybe I've just read mobie dick too many times.

Final thought, I never could figure out what problem he claims she had, do you think anyone is supposed to know? And where the hell are they at that bar? is Ebro a real place? (I ended with questions kelc.)

posted by john owens-ream   [10:48 AM]

tonight, i am craving a very specific dessert: fat-free sugar-free strawberry ice cream with individually packaged oreos. sigh.

i wrote a very long blog entry before but my computer ate it. that's probably for the best. i saw they might be giants on tuesday (in a manner of speaking). i cut off 12 inches of my hair; i like it, i'm much cuter now, in a velma-from-scooby-doo kind of way. i'm going tomorrow to santa fe to visit st. john's, which i have this huge fantasy of being this lovely tasp-ish retreat in the mountains and will most certainly be disappointed. i printed out the hemingway, the wordsworth, and the article on kafka to read on the plane, on top of the assigned bible reading for the st. john's seminar - goddamn, this blog gives more homework than my english class.

natashia has kissing disease, heeheehee. i could tease for much longer, but i'm feeling merciful. i hope you recover speedily, darling, although poetry-reading dehabilitation doesn't sound so bad to me right now. welcome to the blog, dr. chapelle - blog is slang for web log, but beyond that i don't think anyone's pinned down a widely accepted definition yet. now we just need to get jared, mónica, and dr. randall to post. also i believe matthew needs to hit this, as well.

i think every blog entry should end with a question, so all you stalkers out there who are reading but not posting have an excuse to write a post for everyone to enjoy. of course, having said that, i don't actually have one. perhaps you lurkers could un-lurk by positing a good question for us all? anyone?

posted by Kelsey   [10:54 PM]

Oh, my lord, just finished Lolita five minutes ago. I am eternally grateful to all of you who have recommended it to me.

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [4:35 AM]

First of all, yayyyy Dr. Chapelle for blogging! :)

Last night, instead of practicing for my IASAS Cultural Convention (this music/art exchange) audition today - the schedule of which I'd only learned of yesterday - I finally picked up 'Library of Babel.' (yes, I am ashamed that I hadn't touched it earlier) I remember, at one point Jacob threw out a discussion question about hexagons in the piece - and as irrelevant as it sounds now, this is what I think:

The first thing that came to my mind was that the number 6 is the smallest perfect number, as the Pythagoreans deemed it. But perhaps more relevant is that the regular hexagon is the regular polygon with the greatest number of sides that makes a tessellation. (correct me if I'm wrong, Eunice, Adam, or anyone else...) A tessellation so that the people of the library had reason to believe at one point that their world was "perhaps an infinite number of hexagonal galleries." (79) This is where I begin to stretch things, but maybe it might make sense. It did last night. As we know it's impossible to construct a tessellation out of circles; yet "the mystics claim that to them ecstasy reveals a round chamber." (80) The hexagon, as the regular polygon with the largest number of sides that fits into a tessellation on its own, is the closest thing they can get to a circle within the limits of their dimension. Borges dubs man "the imperfect librarian" (80) - to a [forced] extent the library's structure parallels the imperfect struggle for perfection. Perhaps, the divine forces that created the library were imperfect themselves? I don't know.

Okay, I'm done talking. But the Ninoy Aquino International Airport is not - labor quote:

"Congratulations. You have arrived."
- arrivals lobby of the international flights airport, Manila, Philippines.

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [3:34 AM]

Yo yo yo all. Just thought I'd let you all know what I'm up to...well as far as colleges go I'm applying to yale brown wpi rpi...and maybe 2 others I don't know. My guidance counselor said to me "Adam, are you gonna wait til the last minute again (My tasp essays were 10 minutes before the deadline)?" I said "no I think I'm gonna apply to wellsley, wpi etc."
"Adam you haven't done any research, have you?"
"Why do you say that?"
"Wellsley is an all girls schol?"
"I have just decided that I am no longer considering wellsely"
And as far as scholarships go I didn't qualify for national merit! That's garbage! I just assumed all taspers would. They just gave me a pat on the back and said I was a commended scholar.
Also I'm learning to play the old guitar. I can't wait to get good if I ever do lol. Also I will hopefully be posting my pictures as you all should. but I don't make any promises cause it might take me a whille. See ya'll later.

posted by Adam   [11:12 PM]

Our school won't let us wear costumes, so I just answered the door in pajama pants. If anyone asked, I was some pervert for Halloween. ha-
Sorry for not calling Kelsey- I should have, it was a mistake.
Oberlin? I'm applying to the school, but the weekend was a conflict with Reed (back when I thought I was going to go). My friend Verincia goes there, she used to want to be an opera singer, but I think she is looking into math and history (Caribbean and amerafrican) since there seem to be so many opera singers. ... she's got a lovely voice nonetheless. right. .. . So, Eunice, I assume you're looking into the conservatory right? What else interests you there?
O, Tae-Yeoun, I know what you mean about the no-costurme thing. I live close enough to Austin (and the West Chicago Ghetto) so that lots of kids cross over to trick-or-treat from the Oak Parkers. Most don't wear costumes, many don't even say anything, they just walk up, ring the bell, and hold a bag open goggling me (because I'm half naked shivering in 45 degree weather)... I say "do you have anything to say?" or "Can I help you" - then comes "trikatreat" and they attempt to grab a hand full of sugarfood. ha. I came across several who wanted to be gangsters or rappers, or some combination of both. .. One was a 'teenager' . all of them were in normal cloths. . I walked home today assembling a massive ball of litter, discarded candy wrappers and the like. . ave.
Well everyone, I can't type much longer because Max keeps[ iu stealingmy arms and hitting the keyboard sr(you can't see all that I've had to delete because of this chest pinching eye prodding face manipulating sideburn twistig fool) ... well I'm off to hit him now. Good luck with applications everyone- may the force be with you.
Adrian

posted by Adrian   [6:29 PM]

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