POP! CULTURE! LOVE!

do you know me? if you're reading this you probably do. i don't think i get a ton of random traffic here. or, well, much of any traffic for that matter. but whatever! it's time for me to share one of my great loves: deep analysis of popular culture. in other words:

NERD ALERT.

of all of my personality quirks, i embrace my nerdiness with the most relish and joy. i am unabashedly in love with using words like unabashedly. i have an opinion about oxford commas, and i'd be willing to share it with you (even you, vampire weekend). i have not only read the age of innocence, but i've read it about 8 times and i could argue that it gives a much fuller picture of femininity and the complexities of love than any jane austen novel. i think barnett newman's abstract expressionism is real dumb (i mean "zips?" really??) but i love me some rothko (even if admitting that makes me feel like i lose a little indie art cred). i recognize and love my over-use of parenthetical asides in my casual writing (this is the fourth one for this paragraph alone!). and i know that even right this very moment, i'm digging myself deeper and deeper into the bottomless pit that is my nerdiness, and i do. not. care.

but here's my not-so-secret confession: i'm just as happy listening to puccini as i am memorizing the ludacris rap in justin bieber's baby. i love reading short stories from literary magazines, but i can as easily spend my time reading a celebrity news blog. sure, i occasionally like to think i can rise above pop culture on the wings of bach and flannery o'connor and npr. but i know i'm a participant. and not just any participant, a gleeful one.

and i'm here to tell you - the greatest thing about being a nerd is the total lack of tension that comes with using a ten dollar word in describing a two cent tv show.

in other words, being a smarty pants and talking about stuff that's real dumb? COUNT ME IN.

over time, i've found more and more incredibly smart people talking about popular culture. in fact, i would say some of the most intellectually satisfying things i've encountered over the last few months all fall into that category. and man do i want to participate in that conversation! maybe (because of the crushing unlikelihood) not as a pop culture correspondent for npr, but at least with some friends.

twitter is kind of awesome for enabling little bite-sized quips and observations. but the best things i'm seeing right now are as follows:

npr's monkey see - hosted by linda holmes, the blog itself is full of terrific insights: reviews of everything from comic books to theater productions, to the bachelor. but my true love is the weekly podcast entitled pop culture happy hour, in which four npr writers/edtiors/friends sit down and chat about the week's events. the show is snappy, whip-smart, hilarious, and insightful. imagine four of the smartest people you know cracking wise about friday night lights and passionately defending community. it's my favorite.

television without pity - some argue that television without pity lost its teeth when it was acuqired by nbc owned network bravo, but i'd say there are still enough things about it that make it worth visiting. primarily a recapping site, TWoP balances deep analysis with hilarity quite well. they archive all of the shows they've covered, and i can tell you that the recaps of buffy the vampire slayer have made me laugh out loud on multiple occasions.

and finally, the a.v. club - you want smart? you want funny? you want real, thoughtful, deep analysis of last week's glee and why it didn't measure up to the other episodes? go to the onion's a.v. club. seriously. these people know how to write about pop culture. they know how to articulate their arguments, and they know how to do it right. i could literally read this all day. they cover music, film, books, and tv. and i think they're some of the best people out there writing about it.

so yeah. i'm a nerd. are YOU a nerd? do you wanna talk bout buffy with me? or glee? or anything at all? do you work for any of those websites and you want to give me a job? no? okay, that's cool too.

Under Duress

Oh hi. Remember me? Remember this bloggy mcbloggy thing? I barely do, to be honest - which is evident from my total lack of posts in the last, oh, two months.

UPDATES:
- I have some cool stuff happening starting in January. I'm being purposefully vague. Perhaps unnecessarily so, but WHATEVER. It's my blog. I do what I want.
- Because of the cool stuff, I got to quit my retail job! Which is good. Because it was far away and it was retail, and there's this little thing called "Black Friday" coming up and I don't have to work in a retail job for it anymore. Bullet = dodged.
- I'm trying to get as much teaching in as possible. I taught English today and Friday, and I will again tomorrow! Though tomorrow I'm teaching at the tiny little private Christian school in my county, not the public school I taught in today and Friday.

So there. Changes, quitting, teaching! Also, I'm busy teaching/singing with the (two) high school girls at my church, teaching the high school Sunday school class, learning tons of music for the community chorus, and bouncing around doing fun stuff on the weekends.

I also got a web cam (and a haircut!)

See, I just took that picture! JUST  NOW! And I've been Skyping with everyone, near and far. Well, mostly far. Lindsay and Eric in Florida, Emily in Syracuse, Olivia in Lewisburg, and Whit in England! The internet is awesome.

In summation, further proof that the internet is totally awesome: A baby monkey riding on a pig.

You're welcome.

Really, iTunes?!?

Unbelievable.

Other than having the worst recommendations EVER from iTunes, my life is good. Teaching the little babies has been educational, to say the least. Today I had lunch with my former CIT director, which was wonderful. And tonight I might go to a FIGHTNIGHT PARTY.

So yeah, life is good!

The Count...Censored.

I just got back from a nice lunch with my step-mom after packing up the family van with half of the stuff from my dorm. I no longer have a minifridge, a tv, a rug, or most of my clothing. This is a terribly exciting thing for me, because it makes the end of the year that much more tangible.

Tomorrow morning is the Praxis II. Which means I should think about studying for it right now...but...um, well I'm not. And I probably won't. 'Cause I'm really mature and stuff, you know?

Today I took my last undergrad test! LOVE IT. That felt good, too.

I don't think anything else profound has happened lately...OH. Wait.

Okay, listen, I saw this video and it's incredibly inappropriate, but incredibly funny. I mean, it's actually "censored" so it's not traditionally inappropriate, but it's funny because of the implications behind the censoring. Um, so don't judge me, but I laughed for about 24856 years after I saw this video.

Also, it's nothing new or anything. I'm not claiming to be on the cusp of internet hilarity. I just know it when I see it, that's all...and you will too, I promise.



HAHAHA

Busy, busy, busy

I'm back at school, and the week has been really, REALLY busy. I taught all day today and will do the same tomorrow, but this weekend I should have time for some serious blogging....riiiiight.

To tide you over, here is this:



What were people thinking in the early 90's????

(From Best Week Ever)

Baby Whale!

Listen. If you can look at these pictures and not fall in love with this baby whale, there is something wrong with you.



I mean, look at that smile!!

And before you get all judgmental and say things like "Stef, why are there baby whale pictures on your blog? What do they have to do with anything? What kind of free time do you have, that you can find and blog about pictures of baby whales?" I will explain to you that I have a theory that the Internet itself is built by pictures of people dressing up their pets in costumes. So sometimes it's necessary for me to do research about the internet's construction. Secondly, I have a habit of finding and sending these images to a friend of mine who claims to be repulsed by many of them. But I think she secretly loves them. She loves them when they're of bunnies, but when I send her chinchillas wearing hula outfits (that's for real) or BABY WHALES she's unimpressed.

Her feelings about the whale:
"He looks emaciated."

"Days With My Father"

I just found a website that is poignant, beautiful, and downright depressing.

http://www.dayswithmyfather.com/

It's a photojournal of a man's father, who is now 98, living without his wife and without much in the way of short-term memory. It's pretty incredible. To navigate the site, just move your cursor to the bottom of the page, and click to move to the next picture.

But to warn you, you might tear up.


My day was good today - I taught at the Swain School all day. Well, actually I did a lot of observing/helping today, but I did a demo for some 5th graders. They're learning to make gargoyles out of air-dry clay, so I made one to show them the process. And it was fun...big time! The air-dry clay isn't like regular clay (which is kiln fired) and isn't like modeling clay (which never dries because of its oil base), but has the texture of modeling clay with the benefit of drying completely in about a week. So next week, I'll have my very own gargoyle. I sound like a little kid, talking about it! But it's pretty sweet, quite frankly.

I also had a few frustrating moments today: an unpleasant phone conversation, a lot of exhaustion, feeling a bit under the weather, and some windy cold weather that makes standing outside pretty painful. But I have one class tomorrow and then a whole weekend to recover! Which might result in a lot of blog posts, because I don't have much going on...just some watercolor painting. And good things happened today too, like gargoyles, a cool lecture this evening, and a nice phone conversation with Laur.

Finally, I talked to my Grandma Walker tonight. She's THE BEST. We usually talk every Sunday at 5, but last weekend I was returning from Jubilee, and this weekend she'll be in Charlottesville, VA visiting my aunt and her family. So we caught up tonight, which is wonderful. My grandfather's birthday (we call him Pepop) is coming up in March, and Grandma asked me to read a poem at his birthday party. So I have to find a suitable poem...suggestions are welcome! I feel like the pressure is on, because Pepop be lovin' the poetry. I don't want to bring something lame, you know?

The Internet is Somethin' Else: Creating a Fake Band & Album

Sometimes I find interesting things on the internet...and what better place to share those things than RIGHT HERE?

So here are the rules:

1 - Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to Quotations Page and select "random quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together.

5 - Post it