Gender-Liberal
by V.E. on August 21st, 2010
filed under quizzes/surveys
Yeah, I’m not really surprised by this result.
— — —
Your result for The Feminism Test…
Gender-Liberal
You scored 100% Gender-Abolitionist, 100% Sexually Liberal, and 40 % Socialist
The other feminist types:The Housewife The Marxist The Liberal The Liberal Extremist The Gender Abolitionist The Radical The Revisionist
20th Amendment
by V.E. on August 17th, 2010
filed under lost/found, work
I found this card on my way to work yesterday on La Granada Way around 1:30 PM local time. (I walk up to Foothill and catch the bus from there to work on days when the bus runs.)
Front (I assume):
It reads “20th amendment.” in orange marker.
Back:
The back is written in black ballpoint pen and reads:
“Lame Duck” session (1933)
(Jan. 20)
The terms of pres. & vice pres. end on
Jan. 20, & of Congress on Jan. 3
instead of in March.
The Past Week via Twitter: 2010-08-15
by V.E. on August 15th, 2010
filed under twitter
- Also, Rammstein's "Sonne" music video is pretty sweet http://youtu.be/JDPbbFta9SA (I like fairy tale retellings.) #
- helping my brother name songs on his iTunes for the ones he can't figure out. it helps when the songs he's looking for have lyrics. #
- all right! maybe I can get some shit done today (Mon). Like… perchance finish 'Amandine' and also write this review of 'Moon'? #
- the #Cutco knife-sharpening lady just showed up. she's younger than my sister and I and is majoring in neuroscience at #USC >_> #
- @Minakinss yeah, I know. I was just wondering if it's possible to be #sXe *now* without liking punk music. in reply to Minakinss #
- @jpalssf I concur. #
- @GlobalSexWork is there a place I can buy one of those umbrellas? I want to support the cause if I can. in reply to GlobalSexWork #
- thinking about downsizing my stuff. http://yhoo.it/9VuUcI I want to bring home the stuff that's in storage, and I need the space, at least. #
- @yaoipress yes! make some more! I'd buy one. also, the poster, too. ^_______^ in reply to yaoipress #
- goddamn. when I actually write something real that's not "and then this happened blah blah blah" it's exhausting. #
- I'm terrible at memorials. I always feel so awkward writing them, and also furious that a person died before they were supposed to. #
- So. Tired. #
- "I like America because the roads are very wide and the sky is very blue." GMH. #
- I had to explain "rickrolling" to my mom. I'm still not sure she gets it. >_> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickrolling) #
- holy shit. Kappa Beta Gamma has a real website now. when the feck did THAT happen? http://www.kappabetagamma.org/ #KBG #
- "Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go." — T.S. Eliot #
- It's kind of strange, how small the world seems sometimes. #
- okay. heading to work. 3 – close today. back later. #
- yeah. horror movies = not my thing. #
- omfg I smell like cooooofffffffeeeeeeeeee. ugh. #
- my sister has watched like… 5 movies in the past two days. >_> #
- @yaoipress I'm down to look at some illustrated #yaoi books. ^_^ my site is http://www.duncanheights.com in reply to yaoipress #
- finished reading 'Amandine' this past week & saw 'Tales from Earthsea' yesterday w/ my sister. now: to review! more reviews in the pipeline. #
- my brother headed off to his third year of college today w/ all his junk in the back of the truck. Dad's driving most of the way, I think. #
To everyone who wants to read my manuscript
by V.E. on August 15th, 2010
filed under writing
It can take years. With the first draft, I just write everything. With the second draft, it becomes so depressing for me, because I realize that I was fooled into thinking I’d written the story. I hadn’t—I had just typed for a long time. So then I have to carve out a story from the 25 or so pages. It’s in there somewhere—but I have to find it. I’ll then write a third, fourth, and fifth draft, and so on.
—David Sedaris
“Moon” (2009) review
by V.E. on August 10th, 2010
filed under entertainment, recap/review
Okay, so Moon (wiki) wasn’t bad. It wasn’t horror, as my father and I suspected at the beginning, and that’s a good thing, as I don’t do well with horror. My dad’s sister had given him the movie as a gift and said, “Watch this” as if she knew he’d like it. Well, it had been brought up before but was always out-voted for something else until this past Sunday night.
The story follows Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), a man living on the dark side of the Moon sometime in the future who repairs the machines which extract helium-3 from the lunar surface. He’s alone at the base save for his robot assistant, GERTY 
(voiced by Kevin Spacey) and has left his wife, pregnant with their first child when he leaves, on Earth while he completes his 3-year contract on the Moon. When the movie begins, he has just two weeks left in his contract. Cue plot.
My dad had some issues with the science in the science fiction, but I decided to suspend my disbelief until the end. Well, by the end I was like, “WTF is this?” But in a good way, if that makes sense. Rockwell must’ve had a hell of a time talking to himself (which his character does a lot, as the main plot involves possible clones and weirdness). He literally carries the entire film since he’s basically the only one in it, GERTY notwithstanding. Near the end, my dad said it reminded him of The Prestige, but that’s a movie I haven’t seen, so the comparison will have to wait for another time.
Speaking of, GERTY had a striking resemblance to HAL, though the robot in this film was much less antagonistic than I remember HAL being in 2001. Moon is not a robots vs. humans film, something for which I’m thankful, even though I kept expecting it would turn into that at any moment. (Remember, I had no idea what the movie was about before I watched it; I didn’t even get to read the back of the DVD case.) GERTY is, however, one of the most patronizing robot characters I’ve ever seen, but it proves itself when it becomes clear that it actually does want to help Bell midway through the movie (and then proceeds to do so).
There are two female characters in the film, Sam Bell’s wife and young daughter, Tess and Eve, though their parts are so small it might not even be worth mentioning. It safe to say it fails the Bechdel Test.
Overall, it was an interesting case study in What To Talk About If You Ever Find A Clone Of Yourself. If you like sci-fi and have some time, it’s not a bad watch. Don’t expect any great revelations, but I admit it made me want to know more about what happened after the credits roll than was implied by the ending scene.
Michael Workstel
by V.E. on August 10th, 2010
filed under personal, thoughts
I met Michael in June of 2007. I had just finished my B.A. in English and History at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and had been searching (nearly in vain) for something to do after graduation in May that year. Wilkes University was the answer. I was accepted into and enrolled in the Master of Arts in Creative Writing January 2009 cohort, which began in June 2007.
The program at Wilkes is low-residency; here’s how it works: every six months, starting in either June or January (for me, it was June), members of the program stay at the school for an extremely intensive week of readings, writing, and getting to know other writers (professional and aspiring). Then, for the six months after the residency, each student works with a mentor or in a class via the internet from home, where ever “home” is for them. It requires a lot of phone calls and instant messaging since most times students and teachers live in different states, not to mention different time zones. Then, everyone meets back at the school for another week-long residency and the cycle starts again.
It was at that first residency in June of 2007 that I met Mike. There were actually two Mikes in my cohort, and I was admittedly soft-spoken and on the shy side, so at first I couldn’t even tell them apart. Eventually, I was able to parse Mike Workstel from the other one because he was physically larger and could play guitar very well, and often did at his cohort members’ request. (I learned much later that he was even in a band and wrote music, some of which you can hear at his ReverbNation page.) I didn’t have much interaction with Michael until later in the program, even though we were both in the same cohort and even took the Writing Nonfiction class together the semester after the first residency.
When we got to the point in the program in which we had to start writing our own work (as opposed to writing assignments given by teachers), he chose to write his fiction manuscript with a mentor who was well-suited to him. I heard him read some of Saving Joseph in early 2008 and was floored by his creativity in taking an old story and making something new and interesting out of it. It was like he’d reinvented the opening of a flower. I even told him so, which is unlike me. But I remember being so impressed by his language and content that I had to say something, even if it was stilted and fan-girly (which it no doubt was). He took the awkward compliments well, though, and we started up a strange friendship. I also opened up more fully to the rest of my cohort, and they to me.
I chose to write nonfiction (a memoir) and struggled against my subconscious belief that what I was writing about probably wasn’t even worth recording, much less that I was doing it well. In a moment of desperation in July or August 2008, I told him in an instant message that I was about to throw in the towel and just give up on the whole M.A. thing all together. Having read some of my assigned work in the genre classes, he vehemently opposed this and suggested I send him some of my thesis work so he could read it and possibly give me some fresh ideas about how to handle it. Convinced that he’d agree with me once he read the crappy work I’d written so far, I sent him the entire manuscript. It was the first time I’d given anyone (besides a professor) anything I’d written in earnest that was long enough, and revealing enough, to really be able to tell if I was actually a good writer or not. It was more than a hundred pages, and it wasn’t very good.
I didn’t hear from him for a few days, maybe a little over a week, and I thought that was the end of it. I hadn’t really expected him to read it seriously anyway (I wouldn’t have seriously read his manuscript, for example, if he’d sent it to me), and I wasn’t hoping for much. Then, he sent me an email with some notes and his thoughts on my writing. (You can see the entire picture, from which the detail at right was taken, here.)
“This is really good, Viannah,” he said, “It’s still rough, I’ll give you that, but it’s good. Really good. You’re a talented writer. Don’t forget that, and don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise.”
It brings me to tears to write that. Here was this person, this guy I didn’t really even know who was old enough to be my father, a guy to whom I’d sent my writing on a whim, who had actually read it, and who thought it was good. The first non-professorial person to ever read what I’d written (and a true story, no less) and he liked it. He believed in it. Maybe he even believed in me.
Maybe, if this guy could see the good in my writing… maybe I could, too.
At the moment when I most needed someone to believe in me, to believe in the path I’d chosen for myself, he was there. He gave constructive criticism and was honest, and he still said I was a writer. No one had ever called me that. No one ever had reason to, since I’d never shown them anything I’d written, after all. But, if he said it was good, I could have hope that I wasn’t a lost cause.
I don’t know if Mike really believed I was/am a talented writer (though, I like to believe that he did), but he knew what to say to a person who was at the end of her rope and the rope was starting to fray. He believed in me long enough to show me that it was okay to believe in myself and my own talent. He was a friend.
On 12 July 2010, I received an email message which began: “Michael Workstel died Saturday after a long battle with kidney disease.” For a moment, it felt like I’d been punched in the gut. I flashed back to his email in my mind: It’s still rough, I’ll give you that, but it’s good. Really good. As soon as I could breathe again, I wanted to scream. Not fair! Not fucking fair!
Later, his mentor elaborated on his death:
I talked to Michael’s wife, Carly, this morning. She was crying so much that I couldn’t understand everything she said, but this is what I understand happened: Although the kidney transplant operation was a disaster and never completed, Michael wanted to have the operation to repair his fingers so he could write and play the guitar. He had that operation, and it was successful, but complications developed, and he died of cardiac arrest the next day (Saturday, July 10) before being released from the hospital.
Michael and I hadn’t really kept in touch after we graduated in January 2009. I decided to continue on to the M.F.A. program (another year for a terminal degree), and he moved on to other pursuits. He visited the cohort the following June and January when we met in Wilkes-Barre for residencies, and I even met his lovely wife and two daughters, Rachel and Zoe. But our major interaction was those couple of days in 2008 when he told me I was a writer, maybe even just as good as he was, when encouraged me not to give up. At those moments, he saved me. I’ve been saved by other people at other times for other reasons, but then, it was him. At just the right moment, he said just the right thing.
And now he’s gone. All I can hope is that I can be that person for someone else in the future.
As one of your characters in Saving Joseph liked to say, Mike, “Be happy, make music, eat garlic.”
I miss you, Michael Workstel. 4 May 1954 – 10 July 2010.
The Past Week via Twitter: 2010-08-08
by V.E. on August 8th, 2010
filed under twitter
- work again today (Mon) 4 PM to close. #
- I should also think about writing a (long overdue) letter to my grandma, continue reading 'Amandine', and finishing this 'Inception' review. #
- OH! and signing up for Autumn classes (dammit!)… I keep forgetting and if I don't sign up soon, there won't be any good ones left. #
- @Dredgly
sorry, Day. I didn't even see this tweet until just now. (also, I usually close, which means I get out around 10 PM local time.) in reply to Dredgly # - maybe walking with a (former?) friend tomorrow. our relationship is up in the air, but she never responded to my email, so I don't know. #
- also, signed up for Autumn classes today, finally. Introduction to Jewelry (Making), Stress Reduction (a PE class), and Concert Singers. #
- Kuroshitsuji II episode 4! yayayayayay #anime #
- so, we talked for… more than 3 hours, and we're friendly, but I don't know if we're *friends* again. #
- now off to work for me. yay. #
- work again tomorrow (Wed), but I'm NOT closing.. yaaaaaay. #
- I was just watching the 15 minute interview w/ the new Interim President of Franklin & Marshall http://www.fandm.edu/president #
- …and it made me homesick, but for my alma mater. /yearn #
- I do NOT have work tomorrow (yay!) so hopefully I'll be finishing up my review of 'Inception' and getting ahead in reading 'Amandine'. #
- how do you tell someone that they need therapy (and that needing therapy isn't a bad thing)? #
- really looking forward to #singing again with the community college choir this Autumn. ^_^ yay #music #
- I saw 'Inception' last Thursday (July 29) and wrote about it! read my review: http://bit.ly/cbovlO #
- I need to write something real, not just a reaction to something else (ie: a movie review). something about my life. I'm tired of reviews. #
- work time now = 3:15 to close. then work again tomorrow evening at a different store (I'm covering for someone). #
- also, my brother is turning 20 tomorrow! exciting. #
- so, I'm straight edge, but I don't like hardcore punk. so, does that make me straight edge, or not? #
- @Dredgly it's okay! stuff happens. we'll get another chance. I was looking forward to talking to you, but now I still am! ^_^ in reply to Dredgly #
- so, my straight edge #sXe people: is it possible to be #straightedge and also NOT like punk music at all? #
- working on flight/hotel for #Yaoi Con in October. can't do much more tonight without calling the credit card companies (it's a long story) #
- it's hit-the-sack time. more tomorrow, hopefully. and work 7 PM – midnight. #
- hells yes. I actually got some shit done today, and I feel accomplished. and I haven't even been to work yet! #
- also, my brother liked the birthday gift I gave him, so that's a plus. we're celebrating more tomorrow. ^_^ #
- worked out some money stuff, also, but I can't pay for #Yaoi Con ticket/hotel until at least the end of the month. /sadface T_T #
- @Kaiserblazer thanks! I have been for a while, I guess, but I always assumed it was punk music lovers only, which I'm not. #sXe in reply to Kaiserblazer #
- @Kaiserblazer nothing against punk music, it's just not my thing, you know? #sXe in reply to Kaiserblazer #
- work in less than an hour. looking forward to it… sorta? it's at a new store. well, I've *been* there before, but I haven't worked there. #
- I have some thoughts about my sister wearing a see-through dress, the foremost of which is: "Really? *Really?*" #
- brother is playing Super Mario World for #SNES with a friend. No work until Wed. so hopefully I can knock out some chapters of 'Amandine'… #
