I'm normally not a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me Superman.

Duff book of records: Springfield is now the fattest city in the U.S.
Homer: Woo Hoo. In your face Milwaukee.


Just something funny before I start whining. Anyway, through reading other blogs from fellow students of mine, there seems to be a common theme…everybody is extremely strapped and stressed out. I personally have been going through the week from hell. My gas tank is pretty much empty. I have an insane amount of homework due all the way through next Wednesday, and not near enough time to actually complete it. To top it off, we have a draft for our 10 page rhetorical criticism due next Monday, and I haven’t been able to start it yet. I figure I’ll get to it this weekend along with studying for my two exams I have next week. I’ve been averaging between 3 and 5 hours of sleep a night for the past 5 nights, and going non stop from the time I wake up until the time I go to sleep, as well as only squeezing in one meal a day. This kind of lifestyle is insane, and I can’t wait until thanksgiving break. I have never had a semester as rough as this one, but ironically I am doing much better so far than any other semester. This kind of upsets me because I realize now the only reason for not having nearly perfect grades is due to laziness and procrastination…damn you facebook! All I want more than anything in the world is to do something I really enjoy, and something that I WANT to do. I am sure anybody reading this is going through the same type of situation, and so I’m not asking for your sympathy by any means, and this blog probably seems like a reflection of your own mind at this time. And this blog is all I really have time for right now. Maybe this weekend I will get a more uplifting and exciting one in. PACE!

Homer: How is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home winemaking course, and I forgot how to drive?

For relaxing times, make it Suntory time.

Last week we watched the film, Lost In Translation, which goes along with our class discussion on works by Jameson and Auge. In my discussion of the following movie I am going to focus more on the work of Auge since his writing made a little more sense to me, and seemed to go along with the film slightly better.

Anyway, to start off, I would like to touch on what exactly Marc Auge’s writing, “From Places to Non-Places”, was about. He deals with the idea of the postmodern place and non-place. He defines the two with a place as “being historical and relational, with personal significance for the people experiencing it. Places are highly concerned with identity and meaning. A non-place, by that definition, would then be devoid of significance where people do not connect or feel any attachment” (Auge 77-78). To put this into perspective, the world we are living in is moving at a faster and faster pace and as people move through their daily lives, they tend to pull away from social interactions. The accelerated rate of technology helps this trend along with things like ipods because so many people have them in at all times that less and less people talk to one another. Therefore, they start to simply glide through their days more as observers instead of doers. This leads to people not finding any personal significance in their activities and moving into a state of non-place. While in the non-place, people can begin to feel lost and lonely even when surrounded by millions of people. This is the idea that Lost In Translation, touches on.

In the film, the characters Bob Harris (Bill Murray) and Charlotte, end up in Tokyo, Japan. Tokyo is a huge city with millions of people, and a very flashy social scene. However, Bob and Charlotte are in a world they don’t understand. They are totally surrounded by a place which has a language they can’t speak or comprehend, as well as a new and very different culture. Bob and Charlotte begin to look at the Japanese people more as objects than as actual people because they cannot actually interact with them. This is what causes them to feel very lonely and completely lost. The ironic issue that arises then, is that the more people they are surrounded by, the more isolated and misplaced they feel. Both characters become stuck in a non-place. However, when Bob and Charlotte meet, they are able to talk to one another and actually have a conversation. In turn, when they are together, the places they go in Tokyo begin to have some significant meaning and change to a state of place, and they do not feel quite as lost as when they were alone.

An idea I have been considering is what happens when Bob goes back home after the movie concludes. Using what I know about place versus non-place, I feel that Bob is actually going to feel lost at times when he is back home with his family. The reason I think this is because while he was stuck in the non-place in Tokyo, he was really able to reflect on his own life and realize how unhappy he was. Then when he met Charlotte, he was able to find significance in his every day life. Therefore, when he gets back home to his wife and kids who he has really lost touch with, he is going to feel lost and lonely again until he finds a way to relate to them again. Just a quick idea for thought that's all.lost in translation

where's the tooth fairy when i need her?

So what’s been going on with me lately? Well, to start, last Friday (November 3) I had one of my wisdom teeth removed. Now, I know you are wondering why only one of them was removed. The answer is simple. My dentist decided that my mouth would be just fine with my wisdom teeth in. Apparently I have a big mouth….well not really, but it is big enough for 4 extra teeth. Anyhow, after the first tooth had fully grown out, I realized that it was almost impossible to clean behind, and I was probably going to get some cavities or something….not good. So I went back to the dentist and we decided to simply extract them one by one as they came out. Sounds easy enough right? Well after having the first tooth pulled last week, I realized I really did not want to go through this 3 more times. I guess the procedure wasn’t that bad because the dentist gave me the gas before hand which caused me to tell my dentist he had a cute smile, which was good because he’s a dentist. Anyway, I called my dad and we decided that I should have them all taken out at once (I am covered under his insurance, and he’ll pay the bill) so I now have another appointment with an oral surgeon because of the three remaining wisdom teeth, 2 of them are still impacted. I’m really getting sick of the whole teeth thing and I really want it to be over. However, I now wished I would have pursued my original path in college of becoming a dentist. They make so much money for such little work it is unbelievable. Don’t get me wrong…there are many procedures which require great skill and sometimes hard work, but for the average dentist appointment for something like a cavity or a tooth extraction, they get paid mucho bucks! But no, I changed my major, and now I am going to graduate one year later, and make less money….hmmmm.

That’s really all for now…anybody who wants to share their wisdom teeth horror stories feel free. I’d love to hear them.
P.S. If John Stocco does not play against Iowa and we lose to them for the 4th consecutive time since I’ve been in college, I am going to be soooooo pissed off. Ok, that’s all.

I'm off to a non-place...i guess

Wow…it’s been a while! Anyway, the material we covered in last weeks discussions was a little difficult to wrap my mind around. However, as we moved through discussion a few ideas became a little clearer. I had a lot of trouble with the Jameson writing The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. One of the important points I got from the Jameson critique was that he did not like how with post-modern art, a spectator has to go directly to the artist and ask them what the meaning is behind their work. For example, he brings up “A Pair of Boots” by Van Gogh, and “Diamond Dust Shoes” by Andy Warhol. He makes the claim that a person can start to grab a hold of the meaning and content encompassed within the boots painting, however when one looks at the painting by Warhol, it is very hard to understand what the painting means because it has become decontextualized (I don’t know if that’s a real word). Jameson really does not like that artists are putting work out there that to him has a hidden meaning. However, I don’t like his critique because I think a lot of artists have an idea of what they are going for, but a lot of their reasons for the work are to see what other people’s responses are. I think that is a great idea because everybody has different background they come from and therefore are going to have different views on the art they view. On page 10 of his writing, Jameson says, “…a third feature to be developed here, what I will call the waning affect in postmodern culture. Of course, it would be inaccurate to suggest that all affect, all feeling or emotion, all subjectivity, has vanished from the newer image”. So at least Jameson does recognize there is some meaning behind the Warhol painting, but he feels it is not as obvious.

The piece written by Auge was a little bit easier to understand From Places to Non-Places. The idea I was able to grab a hold of is what makes somewhere a “place” is when a person has interaction there. In class we brought up the example of a supermarket, which for most people would be considered a non-place. The reason for this is because for most people, they go into the supermarket, get their things and get out. The supermarket does not really have a lasting affect on a persons day after they have left. However, if somebody were to bump into you with their cart, and you confront them, and begin conversing, then you maybe have crossed over from non-place to place. Different people can be in different states. A shopper may be in a non-place, however a person who works at the supermarket may view it as a place because they will be interacting with people there often. I thought this was funny because I realized that I am the annoying person who often drags a person from the non-place to the place state at the grocery store by asking them some annoying question as to what they are purchasing or something like that. I apologize if this analysis didn’t really make sense to anybody, and I will try to fix it up a little bit. That’s all for now. Adios!