Living in a Desert

A while back I decided I wanted to try out writing something in a second-person POV. The idea of a second-person narrative is appealing to me, but I decided to keep it simple and stick to a essay about what it's like to live in a desert; I like to assume that people are always wondering. The rough draft didn't take very long, but I've been mulling the idea over in my mind and editing it a bit more, so though it was written mid-Spring, I'm finally posting it now early Summer.


What it's like to live in a desert

You have to remember to turn off your fans when you wake up in the morning, both the ceiling fan, whose job it is to circulate air throughout the room, and the small table fan sitting on your desk, which points at your bed and keeps you cool at night. If you forget either, you'll be scolded for wasting electricity.

As much as you hate waking up early, the mornings are actually sort of nice. The house is cool when you leave for class, still a bit sleepy and weary-eyed, and you can imagine that it'll be like this all day.

Average morning temperatures are in the 80s, Fahrenheit – not as cool as you would like but noticeably different from the 105 daily average.

None of the schools here are indoors, like they are in the movies, and that kind of bugs you. Air conditioning costs make that too expensive. Instead, classrooms are lined up together in wings with their doors facing out into small courtyards. During breaks, students huddle together under the covered walkways or in the shade of trees or buildings. Freshmen unable to score Upperclassman guardians leave their backpacks where they can and run around in a way that tires out the seniors.

You lost contact with your Upperclassmen when they left for college, but you inherited your spot from them, just as your Freshmen will inherit it from you. That's the unwritten law here.

The state requires there to be a certain amount of water fountains on campus, but you can't imagine they get much use. During the winter your fountain is clogged and in the summer you have to hold the button down for a minute until the hot water flushes out of the pipes - and then you still have to ignore the bits of trash and dried gum collected in the bowl. The best water fountain is across campus from your spot, and you only bother if you're really thirsty.

And there's always the one classroom where the air conditioning doesn't work, and the one where the teacher's tricked out the thermostat with a heat lamp so it's always cold. The people at the district office hate it when teachers do that, but then they're not stuck in a room with 30+ teenagers.

You talk with friends at lunch about making plans for the weekend. Generally this involves going to the movies or to the local outdoor mall, if you decide to go out at all. It's getting into late spring, which is essentially the same thing as summer but the breezes are still cool, and it's generally agreed upon that one shouldn't leave the house unless one has a very good reason. Your parents may not like it, but if you're going to be getting together with friends then it will probably end up with everyone at your house, flipping through Netflix and musing that it might've been nice to go to Sammy's instead. Sammy's parents have a pool, but they're a bit wary of teenagers.

That's for Saturday, tho'. Tonight you'll go straight home and stay there, locking the door on your way in and pulling closed the west-facing blinds. You get an hour or so alone, until your parents get off work. In that time you leave the house dark, turn the air conditioning down lower than dad likes, and set the laptop to boot up while you take a quick shower to rinse off.

If you were planning to go anywhere this evening you might change into another dry outfit, but tonight you can change into pajamas and dedicate a large amount of time to the internet. You like to imagine that you'd be able to survive in a world without internet, but you don't actually know what you'd do if that world arrived today.

As you already caught up with your school friends, now it is time to catch up with online friends. That girl you've been chatting with from Ohio will have been out of class for four hours now, and she's already updated her blog. You kind of hate how the time difference means that you can only talk between the time you get home, late for her, and the time she goes to bed, early for you.

If this was winter, your evening would be very different. For one, you wouldn't feel the need to take a shower, and instead of closing all the blinds you'd be letting in as much light as possible. If it managed to get cold enough you might even be able to convince your parents to let you start a fire in the fireplace.

And then there's always that awkward time between winter and summer, when you feel the need to wear a sweater as you leave for class than then can't wear it for the whole rest of the day. This is the reason you got into scarves and arm warmers – much easier to carry around.

In the summer, tho', you have to remember to turn the air conditioning back up before dad gets home. If mom's home first she wont mind, and may even cover for you. Air conditioning can be expensive, but you both agree it is really hot.

Sometime you talk to people from other parts of the world and they sort of pity you for how hot the desert is. You used to feel the same way until your family took a trip one summer to the midwest, and you realized just how miserable humidity could be. Your desert is at least dry. When people online ask if 'dry heat' really makes any difference, you fix your computer with a blank stare and reply "yes. yes it does."

If people from out of town were to visit and ask you what there was to do, you could easily point them to the local 'zoo', which houses all sorts of plants and animals native to deserts, or to the date store, with the huge knight landmark out front, even though you've never been particularly fond of the palm tree fruit yourself. Those both seem to be necessary places to visit, but as a resident you haven't actually been to either spot in a long while.

However, it's not as if people come here to visit often. If non-residents do come down, they're either: visiting family; snowbirds, part time residents who take advantage of the 'good winter weather' and who are constantly made fun of, for some reason; attendants to one of the major annual music festivals, which you've only been to once because the tickets are expensive and you can hear the music pretty well at Max's house; attending the major sporting event, which involves tennis because apparently tennis is still a big thing in some circles; or rich, and just here for the golf.

You are biased against golf. It's never done anything bad to you, personally, but it's never done anything good to anyone either.

Generally it's you and your people who are leaving to visit other areas. Disneyland's pretty close by, and there's a beach only half an hour away, along with some other pretty neat areas because this is Southern California and SoCal is pretty neat in general. It's always kind of strange, leaving the valley, passing through the sprawling wind farm, because it seems to drop in temperature almost immediately. As if there's a pocket or barrier, and on one side is "desert" climate and the other... something "not desert."

And since you were nine and realized you could, in fact, leave your parents for good and decide on somewhere else to live, you've been firmly set on that place being somewhere in the "not desert."

Somewhere that there are seasons, where the leaves change colors and it snows, and summer nights are a blessing, not a curse. Somewhere that wasn't cut off from the nearby communities by a range of mountains, where you didn't have to worry that what you hung on the walls might fall during an earthquake. Where water droplets falling from the sky weren't mana from heaven, and where snuggling up in a cozy warm bed could be a comfort.

You're in high school now and that dream hasn't disappeared, but you're starting to wonder. As much as you really hate the desert, you really sort of love it too. And you're not even sure why. You still insist on moving out when you can, but for the first time in your life you realize that you may actually miss it, when you're shivering beneath multiple layers in the snow.

Homestuck Notifier - Spades Slick

 If you've been following me on Tumblr, you know that lately I've gotten interested in a webcomic called Homestuck. It's made up to feel like an old school text-based video game, and it incorporates a lot of audio, flash animation, and even a few flash mini-games (making it a sort of multi-media webcomic). I wont bother trying to summarize the plot, as it's a bit complicated, but it's a really intriguing storyline and I'm hooked.

The comic updates regularly, generally on a daily basis, so sometimes fans have to constantly check the site to see if there's a new page. Luckily, one such fan developed a program called the Homestuck Notifier, which checks the Homestuck RSS feed regularly, and when there's a new update, a sound will play and an image will pop up above the computer's taskbar.

The Notifier cycles through a bunch of preset fanart, but the READ ME explained that you could upload your own image or sound to the program's macro folder. Obviously I had to do this, because the preset images didn't include one of Spades Slick, one of my favorite characters.

Writing Prompt Response #3

Finally, the third of the three writing prompts I was given about a month ago. This is a bit late not only because I waited until I was finished with the other two before starting, but because it took me a while to get into the feel of the story. I'm still not completely satisfied - will probably be coming back to this sometime, but I'm happy with what I have for now. I didn't completely stick to the prompt, and I didn't really tell everything there was to tell, but I have a tendency to do that anyways.

The original prompt was "Three siblings or best friends, overcoming (or attempting to) something that would otherwise threaten to split them apart forever."

How to get an Affectionate Kitty

This is for all you people asking.

Haha just kidding, no one's been asking. But I do have a super-affectionate kitty, and I know people whose cats aren't so affectionate. I've always wondered why this is, so I got to thinking about it, and now I've made a set of super easy-to-follow instructions on how to get a kitty just as affectionate as mine!

Things you'll need:

• A kitty (male or female)
• Cat food and a place for the cat to do their business
• An animal shelter or friends willing to take on unwanted kittens
• Older siblings (3+, 4 recommended, males also recommended)
• 10+ years

Writing Prompt Response #2: Coffee Pirates

My second flash-fiction prompt response. This one took a bit longer because I wasn't so sure where to go with it, and it came out a bit longer as well (~3k - I don't really feel like the length did it justice, because I wanted to explore the characters a bit more, but any longer and it really wouldn't have been flash fiction anymore).

Instead of listing it at the end, here's the original prompt: A band of “pirates” in Seattle frequently raid coffee shops as part of an international coffee bean heist. But they're terrible at it.

Writing Prompt Response #1

((I texted a few close friends some time to see if they could give me some writing prompts. This is my first flash-fiction response to the first prompt I got back. The original prompt will be listed at the bottom.))

Markus had mulled it over in his mind and had decided that he did not like this, not one bit. He'd been stuck in this too-small tank for far too long, in an environment which he thought must be either too warm or too cold, and he was starting to ache in his fins from lack of movement. The water had developed a sort of staleness and Markus was starting to feel hunger growing in his belly, a feeling he never particularly cared for.

Unfortunately there didn't seem to be any feeders nearby. It was also dark and darkness was another thing Markus had never particularly cared for.

Markus thought back on how indignant he'd been when the feeders had loaded him into this uncomfortably tight tank and felt reassured that he had been right all along. Of course he was. Nothing good could come out of this strange game.

His mother, for whom he had never felt any particular fondness, had assured Markus that this was a routine transfer, that they'd be giving him his own space, and that this happened all the time and everything would be fine. Well everything wasn't fine, thank you very much. Markus had no idea where he was and it occurred to him that maybe the feeders didn't, either. Markus was lost - that's what it was. He had never felt lost before - well, he'd never actually left home before - and he thought sensibly to himself that he didn't quite care for the feeling at all.

Markus was, as far as he could tell, a shark, and being lost seemed beneath him.

When the world finally did flash into light, Markus could see that his tank had developed a sort of grittiness. The still water must have collected some dirt, or - he shuddered - dust. Vague figures appeared beyond the tank's surface, and Markus fixed them with a stare filled with as much reproach as he could manage. It did not do, he thought, to leave a perfectly innocent and harmless creature such as himself in a place such as this. He resolved to forgive them only after he had been fed.

Markus did get fed, but it was a strange sort of meat that he didn't like the taste of, and it was hard to get at in his confined tank; he still felt hungry afterward, and not very forgiving at all. When they finally changed his tank, it was cleaner and fresher, with moving water, but still too small and he shook his head in disappointment. Markus reminded himself that he deserved more, and pledged not to forgive the silly beings until they'd given him such.

The feeders got his tank moving again, as Markus reasoned that they must finally be on their way to his very own new water space. He applauded, as it were, his own ability to cope with what had happened, and promised himself never to do it again.

Not too long later - though much longer than he would have liked - Markus felt himself dropped into a pool of clean, fresh water. He waggled his tail in pleasure, happy to see he had quite a large area in which to swim, and then noticed he was not alone.

His new tankmate was a girl - it figured - and she haughtily informed him that he was late. Not wanting to start out on a bad note, Markus explained that it wasn't his fault, that he in fact had been shipped through the Chicago docks and that someone had misplaced his forms and forgotten to tell everyone where he was. She gave no reply and Markus wasn't sure if she was unimpressed with his narrative or if she just didn't care.

The next day a crowd came over to stare at him. Markus swam around the tank and their eyes followed him, and there was no place where he would wait peacefully for them to go away.

He looked at them unhappily and thought to himself that he really did not like this, not one bit.

((Original Prompt: A shark gets lost in Chicago.))
((So, I started writing this without planning ahead - which is always a fun way to write - and realized about halfway through that I had yet to mention Chicago, and there was never really a good way to work it in. I also considered doing another more magical-realist, with an actual shark just swimming through the air of actual Chicago, lost and asking for directions and such. I may yet do that.))

URL Change

I warned about this on Tumblr but I forgot to mention it here.

My previous URL was Disociative.Blogspot.com - and while I kinda liked it, no one had any idea what it was supposed to mean. Because I'm interactive with people on Tumblr now (which, being linked to this blog, I figured should always share the URL), I wanted to change my URL to make it easier to read and understand.

The new URL is PagesOfKenna.Blogspot.com. I decided to add my name in, since it's always a bit awkward trying to remember the names of Tumblr users, when their URL is all you generally see. It's pretty simple and self-explanatory now, so there's no need to try to explain what the name means.

I don't think this change will cause too much conflict, since everyone following me is probably doing so through Google's Blogger account system or from my constant updates on my unlinked Facebook account - hopefully this will actually make things better, since the name is easier to remember.

Book Survey

Someone I'm following on Tumblr linked to this book survey on her main blog. These are 65 questions about books and things in books, and I'll try to keep it interesting (ergo, my answers my run a bit long). As I've read a lot of books in my time, I may not be able to think of the best answers for some of these; unless I have a specific example otherwise, I'm going to try to stick to the books I have on my shelf. The rule stated that you couldn't use the same answer twice, so as much as possible I'll try to follow that.

(EDIT: Also, I realized halfway through that I could count my manga as well, but since I'd already filled out most of the answers I decided not to. Just note that if I'd realized this earlier there would have been some Rurouni Kenshin or Death Note references.)

Halting State by Charles Stross

I discovered only recently that I'm a huge fan of science fiction. By 'recently' I mean a couple years ago, but considering that I've been an avid reader since before kindergarten, I'm surprised I didn't notice this before.

I specifically enjoy sci-fi stories that aren't cautionary. Cautionary tales are nice and whatever, but it has almost become a necessity for futuristic stories, and I like when writers are able to tell a story that uses the future as a setting, not a main plot point (and I feel obliged, here, to bring up "I, Robot," an Issac Asimov anthology which seemed to acknowledge that expectation and show the flip side. The 2004 movie ignored Asimov's original intention and transformed the anthology into a stereotypical cautionary tale again).

To foster this newfound love, I've been looking for enjoyable sci-fi stories, and I found one when I heard about Charles Stross' near-future novel Halting State.

Re: Your Brains Flash Essay

A week ago one of my English teachers gave an assignment - and I'm cutting that sentence of here to explain that, yes, I have to English teachers I mean professors (man, so many things to remember in college). One of these professors I've had before, so I'll call him Professor One, but this is my first semester with this other professor, so I'll call him Professor Two.

Last week Professor Two assigned everyone to bring in the lyrics to a song we really liked. We're working on a poetry unit, and the idea was to look at the lyrics without the music, and critique it as a poem.

We were to bring in those lyrics at our next class on Thursday, and I spent the rest of Tuesday trying to think of an appropriate song, then most of Wednesday trying to convince myself not to use Johnathan Coulton's 'Re: Your Brains.'

If you haven't heard this song before, click here to listen to it on Youtube. Johnathan Coulton is a relatively well known comedic musician on the internet, and this song is probably his most famous.

I finally did bring in the lyrics to this song on Thursday, and we were asked to write a short 'flash essay' on the lyrics. I think Professor Two thought our songs would have a more serious tone, so I had a bit of difficulty writing about this one, especially since it's a simple narrative with no complex imagery to explain. A friend of mine asked that I let her read what I wrote, so I'm posting it here; remember, it's not that great, as I wrote it in only a few minutes, and for the most part it's unfinished.


Johnathan Coulton's song "Re: Your Brains" is a straightforward narrative about a zombie attack, told through the eyes of a zombi-fied office worker, politely asking a friend to come out of hiding so the zombie horde can get his brain. The song is meant to be satirical, suggesting that Bob, the narrator, is not the stereotypical mindless zombie.

The first few lines of the song really set the tone. It starts "Heya Tom, it's Bob, from the office down the hall/Good to see you buddy, how's it been?" At this point, a first time listener would expect something entirely different from the real message of the song. The character Bob is also making himself out to be a gentleman from the beginning, an illusion quickly crushed by the next lines, "Things have been OK for me except that I'm a zombie now/Really wish you'd let us in."

The song continues to try to paint Bob as the caring gentleman, especially in the chorus, which says "We're not unreasonable, I mean, no one's going to eat your eyes/All we want to do is eat your brains/We're at an impasse here, maybe we could compromise." The song achieves a wonderful hilarity by being straight-forward and sincere, ignoring the dark implications of the setting.


That's all I wrote in class, and unfortunately Professor Two didn't read the essays -though there's a chance he will later in the semester. If he does, I'll polish up my writing and try to obtain the same satirical tone Coulton wrote with (and, of course, share it with you all here).

Treadmill Reviews: The Last Enemy

Masterpiece, previously Masterpiece Theater, is, as far as I can tell, a PBS owned Anthology series which re-airs really awesome British dramas, among other things. I'm still not completely sure how this works, but the idea of a television anthology seems awesome enough for me to trust their judgement.

In my ongoing efforts to convince myself to use our treadmill more often, I turned to BBC/Masterpiece Contemporary's 2008 near-future drama The Last Enemy, a mystery thriller about a mathematician returning after four years to a Britain which is becoming hauntingly similar to Orwell's 1984.

New Classes (again)

Spring semester has finally started up again here in the desert, so here comes my obligatory 'new semester' overview. We've had quite a long break between Fall and Spring semesters (in the past I believe there was a short Winter quarter in there, but with budget cuts that's now gone), and I know I'm not the only one who's pretty relieved classes are up again. Break is nice, but when I'm not looking for work I'm sitting around the house with nothing to do.

My schedule this semester is pretty full; I'm trying to make up for having a pretty meager selection last Spring. Not only am I at the college for a longer period of time this semester, but I'm also having to familiarize myself with parts of the campus I've never been around before.

A Desire to Make Things Better

Early last week a girl I happened to be following on Tumblr posted a query to her followers asking if anyone would be willing to edit an essay she had written. I, as you might know, have quite a bit of experience with writing and editing (or at least more than the average internet user), and I instantly thought that I could do so easily. Instead of informing her, however, I kept quiet; she seemed to be a relatively popular user, and of her many followers I was a random nobody.

She reblogged the query again an hour later, at which point I realized that, despite my expectations, nobody had responded. Since I really wasn't doing anything that afternoon, I nervously sent her a message, which she responded to a few minutes later, and before long I had her essay in my email box ready to be looked over.

Life on Mars and Other Things

Last year I managed to do pretty well with my regular treadmill sessions. I think I clocked almost an hour a day six days a week for the entire last six months, which may not sound like much but was definitely more than I had been managing before. After my brother's wedding in October, however, my treadmill sessions started to become few and far between.

Around New Years, someone I was following on Tumblr mentioned wanting to get back to exercising regularly, and I decided it was high time for me to return to regular exercise as well. I'd built up a small list of things on Netflix that I could watch while on the treadmill, so I couple of weeks ago I picked a TV show at random and started walking.

The Fault in our Stars

About a year and a half ago or more, my brother told me about an online video blog series he was following called Vlogbrothers; two brothers, John and Hank Green, would 'vlog' back and forth as a way to keep in touch. Their vlogs had quite a large following over time, and mostly included them either talking about nerdy things, discussing current events, or just overall trying to make the world a better place.

The community of fans call themselves 'Nerdfighters', and a full post about that is for another time.

I didn't start avidly watching the Vlogbrothers' videos until this summer, however, at which time John Green, the older of the two brothers and an award wining novelist of YA fiction, would continuously mention his upcoming book in his videos. Late last summer, he announced that he would be signing every pre-ordered copy of the book, titled The Fault in our Stars, and John proceeded to take on the enormous challenge of signing his name over and over, 150,000 times.

I started this blog with the intention of writing a review on The Fault in our Stars, but I'm not really sure what there is I can say about it. The book finally came out on the 10th, though I didn't start reading it until a week later (After I finished re-reading The Count of Monte Cristo). I finished it in about a day or two; John Green's writing is so straightforward and easy to read that many people could finish the book in one sitting (as long as they sat for a couple of hours; it's a 300-page book).

Not only is Green's writing style very comfortable, but his characters are likable and well-developed. Hazel Grace Lancaster, the protagonist and narrator of he story, is a 16-year-old girl with lung cancer, forced to wheel around an oxygen tank wherever she goes. She doesn't gloss over her cancer story, nor does she make it seem worse than it is. She has her own life, her own likes and dislikes, and instead of taking over her story her cancer is more like an amendment to it.

Augustus Waters, the boy she falls in love with, seems at first almost too good to be true. Not only is he smart and charming and instantly likable, he shows us over time his own weaknesses; he says in the first chapter that he fears oblivion, but it's only later that we realize how much.

If you want to know more about the book, I'd suggest reading the reviews by NPR or The New York Times; that, or read the book for yourself. It's a straightforward, 'real' tale of life with cancer, unmarred by perfect characters changing the world, but also not completely without hope. The book is written with Green's trademark hilarity but, as other reviewers have warned, the "laugh to cry ratio is pretty much 1:1."

Happy Chinese New Year!

This is the year of the Dragon (Jan 23, 2012 – Feb  9, 2013), according to the 12-year Chinese Astrology cycle! Factoring the 60-year elemental cycle, that makes this the Yang Water Dragon.

I hope you understand that today's blog is a total cop out. I was going to do today's week Tues/Thurs until I realized I needed to wish you Happy Chinese New Year today; essentially, regular posts coming on their regular days this week, excluding today.

Romances to Suggest

This is just a minor list of novels sitting on my self that have a romantic leaning (whether it's the main plot or not) that I would like to suggest. Some of these may be getting full reviews later. These are in order of how they appear on my shelf (by author's last name):

-Sense and Sensibility
A Jane Austen that I think everyone's heard about. It's a bit less famous than Pride and Prejudice, which is also on my shelf but isn't being listed because I think everyone knows about it. Though Austen's style may be a bit unfamiliar to some, it's a really good story if you can get into it, and I might just like it more than the other famous Austen, though mostly out of spite (they're both really good novels).

-The Wolf Hunt
A historical fantasy/romance by Gillian Bradshaw, highly recommended by me. This is an adaptation of the earliest known werewolf story, Bisclavret, which is a French epic poem about a man with the ability to transform into a wolf, who is betrayed by his wife, trapped in wolf form, and taken up by his liege king as a sort of pet until he is able to get his revenge. It's an awesome story, and the adaptation adds a bit of romance with a female protagonist; very historically accurate, from what I can tell, and, as I mentioned before, highly recommended.

-Enchantment
Probably one of the lesser known Orson Scott Card novels, which Card himself said was one of his favorites. A Russian-born American travels back to his homeland and gets trapped in an ancient Russian fairytale, a Slavic version of Sleeping Beauty in which he and the princess must fight the evil witch Baba Yaga while Ivan, the protagonist, struggles to figure out how to return to his own time. Very much an OSCard novel, with smart characters and an intriguing plot, but an unexpected romance all the same.

-Paper Towns
A big break from the previous titles on this list, Paper Towns in a modern day YA novel by John Green. The protagonist Quentin (known as 'Q') is called out for a night of adventure by Margo Roth Spiegelman, a girl who has always been an fascinating enigma, only to discover the next day that she had disappeared. He spends the whole rest of the novel trying to balance searching for her and keeping up with his own High School life, and the conclusion makes this definitely one of my favorite YA novels.

-The Fault in our Stars
The newly released John Green novel, about a girl dying of lung cancer, the boy she meets, and the adventures they go on. This one is getting a full review next week, but I'm adding it here because it's definitely a good read; be prepared to laugh and to cry, though.

-The Phantom of the Opera
Gaston Leroux, this one is being added to the list just because I don't think many people have read it. It took me a bit to get into, but it's very goof and definitely a recommend for everyone who loves the play/movie(s).

-Much Ado about Nothing
By far my favorite Shakespeare; Shakespearean in writing but hilarious and wonderful. Beatrice is a smart woman who has refused to marry; Benedick is a sarcastic bachelor who loves his 'freedoms'; both are tricked into falling in love after a series of conspiracies between their friends. Catherine Tate and David Tennant recently acted the lead roles in a stage version, which I would have given anything to see (still hoping for a Region 1 DVD release; fingers crossed!)

-The Importance of Being Earnest
Recommending this particular Oscar Wilde play because it'll probably be the easiest to get a hold of (Colin Firth and Rupert Everett did a version recently that was wonderful). Jack fakes the name Earnest when going into town to pursue the affections of his love Gwendolyn; his friend Algernon, after hearing this, goes to the country and pretends to be Jack's fake brother Earnest, to pursue the affection of Jack's young ward Cecily. Other wonderful Wilde plays include Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, and An Ideal Husband).

Thoughts on Love and Selfishness

This isn't at all what I meant to talk about today, but I read something recently that got me to thinking, and it would be sacrilege not to publish my every thought (that was sarcasm, btw). This is going to be short, and probably a bit aesthetically unappealing as I'm not going to bother finding a bunch of random, semi-related images to sprinkle around.

I just got finished reading a romance novel, and at one point the male romantic lead mentioned to the female romantic lead that, for at least one second, he thought he would be willing to let her die in order to spare her the pain of seeing him die. When MRL (I'm initializing) said this, my respect for him grew enormously.

I'm mostly talking about the Great Romantic Love today, the heroic love from romances and not real life. There seems to be a thought going around that this kind of love is completely selfless, where both romantic leads are willing to do anything in order to make their significant other happy, even risking their lives so that the other might survive. I gave it some thought a long time ago (and by 'a long time' I mean I think I was in Middle School), and I decided that I largely disagreed with this thought.

This came up again in High School, when we read Ayn Rand's Anthem for IB English in our Sophomore year. Ayn Rand, in case you don't know, created the philosophy of Objectivism, which essentially states that man's highest goal in life should be to obtain his own happiness. This idea, of course, chaffed with a lot of the students, though I found myself agreeing with it in at least some respects. Anthem itself was a sort of allegory used to explain Rand's philosophy.

A major part of the story is the fact that Equality, the name given to the main character by society, falls in love with a girl named Liberty, who he's not supposed to even know. A few students brought this up, wondering how he could be falling in love with someone if he's supposed to be thinking only about his own happiness, and our teacher tried to explain that the act of loving is mostly selfish, saying something to the effect of "he loves her because making her happy is something that makes him happy."

I completely understood that; when thinking about love and selfishness, my mind is almost always drawn to think about the obligatory 'dying in order to save your lover's life' scene in most heroic romances. The hero of the scene, helplessly in love with the main love interest of the fiction, would rather die than be forced to live in a world without him/her.

Which is nice until you consider that, by dying, the hero is forcing their significant other to do the very thing they (the hero) could not possibly stand to do. That's OK if the significant other didn't feel exactly the same way about our hero, but that's rarely the case in Great Heroic Romances. So, what; you can't bare to live with the misery of your significant other's death, but you don't mind is s/he had to live with that misery?

Sure, it sounds a bit narcissistic to assume your lover will be as broken up about your death as you would be about theirs, but essentially you're coming off as selfish either way.

This is something I've been thinking about; I just finished re-reading The Count of Monte Cristo earlier this week, which has a somewhat similar Great Romance subplot, and the life-for-a-life thing isn't rare in heroic fiction with romantic subplots. That's why, reading this other book, I really grew to respect the MRL, not just for all the awesome things he did in the story, but for being, at that moment, extremely selfless, wishing to spare the FRL more suffering (which kind of ended up being a major theme within the story).

BBC's Sherlock

I didn't always listen to their advice, but over time I've discovered that my family members have a wonderful taste in fiction. I spent years refusing to read Animal Farm purely because my dad suggested it, only to realize what a great book it was after all, and since then I've been trying to listen to all of their suggestions.

I'm not sure whether to attribute this to my eldest brother or his awesome wife, but some time back they informed me that I needed to watch Sherlock, an interesting sounding series being produced across the pond for BBC. It took me a while to finally watch it, but I'm glad I did; BBC's Sherlock is easily one of the best dramas being produced today.

A Movie about a Horse

We went to go see War Horse last Saturday night, because my mom wanted to see something and it was the only thing that looked interesting to her. My father and I were more hesitant, because the title itself seemed unimpressive, but it had Speilberg's name on it and we don't go out to see movies enough for it not to be a treat whenever we do. Committed blogger that I am, I vowed to write my review on it before we even got to the theater.

Sherlock Reactions: The Reichenbach Fall

My reaction to the third episode of Sherlock, split into two sections for both before and after seeing the episode. Remember, this reaction will be spoilerific, so if you haven't seen the episode yet I'd suggest reading my Sherlock 2-Season Review instead. You can also read my reactions for A Scandal in Belgravia and The Hounds of Baskerville.

Sherlock Reactions: The Hounds of Baskerville

This is actually the first reaction I wrote, as it didn't occur to me to do so until just after watching this episode. You can also read my reactions on Scandal in Belgravia and The Reichenbach Fall. Remember, this post will be spoilerific, so if you haven't seen the episode I'd suggest reading my Sherlock Two-Season Review instead.

Sherlock Reactions: A Scandal in Belgravia

My reaction to the first episode of the new season of Sherlock (BBC) - you can also read my reactions to The Hounds of Baskerville and The Reichenbach Fall. This will be spoilerific, so if you haven't seen the episode yet I'd suggest reading my Sherlock 2-Season Review instead.

Totally off topic, but that smiley face on the wall reminds me of an orange portal.

Phil the Flying Shark

I'm not a huge bragger; I don't find joy in bragging about things that I have or so on. In fact, despite being a generally happy person, I feel a bit awkward whenever I talk about things that make me happy.

I'm going to break that habit for a moment, however, to explain how incredibly stoked I am about my new pet flying shark.

Sorry for the low quality - cell phone cameras, y'know.

DeMille's Lost City

As someone who uses the internet frequently, I'm always picking up on random pieces of information, which works out as great fodder for irl conversations or wayward blog posts. Some of these facts or stories that I pick up are amazing, humorous, or bizarre. Sometimes it's all of the above.

In 1983, an amateur filmmaker, following a cryptic clue left in an old book, found an ancient city, complete with sphinxes and a 20-ton statue of the Pharaoh, buried beneath the sand dunes of not Egypt, but Southern California. I'm not making any of this up. The man who made the discovery was Peter Brosnan, the book was the autobiography of Cecil B. DeMille, and the ancient city was the complete set to his silent classic, The Ten Commandments.

Notes to Friends: Part 2

Part 1 can be found here.

Dear Treadmill,
I know we've had a sort of on-again-off-again kind of relationship, and I hope I'm not confusing you. To be blunt, you're really boring. I'll keep hanging out with you because I know I'm supposed to, but, despite how rude it may seem, I'm going to be texting Laptop the entire time.
Sorry,
Kenna

Dear Piano,
I hope you don't think I'm ashamed of you; I'm not ashamed of you. In fact, I make sure everyone knows about our deep love for each other! I'm just a bit embarrassed to be showing that love when others are around. Don't worry; I'll fit in extra practice time whenever I can, and when I'm confident enough we'll show everyone how beautiful you are!
With much love,
Kenna

Dear Pool,
In case you ever wondered why we stopped hanging out, it's because going to see you takes more effort on my part than I'm willing to spare. I hope that doesn't come off as rude, but seriously - I have to get all dressed up just to see you? Also, you're a bit high-maintenance. Sorry, but I don't think this friendship is going anywhere.
Sincerely,
Kenna

New Year's Traditions

I may be a week late, but Happy New Year everyone! 2012 is a year that I know many people have been looking forward to.

Personally, I'm not very big on New Year's Resolutions; everybody jokes about how we all forget them within a couple of weeks, and it's true. I agree that goal-setting is a worthy activity, but waiting until that specific day to start them seems a bit arbitrary.

As a family, we've also never been pretty big on the whole 'New Year's Eve' thing either. I hardly ever remember staying up to cheer on the New Year, or watching the ball drop in New York. A friend introduced me to the idea of eating black-eyed peas for good luck, but I don't think my family has ever done anything of significance for luck in the new year. Generally, I'd stay up late (as a normal teenager on break) and listen to our neighbors making noise before finally nodding off an hour later.