|
C-box
Jun 20, 2011 8:15:03 GMT -5
Post by Olive on Jun 20, 2011 8:15:03 GMT -5
I don't know if it's possible to institute such a thing on this forum... but I will look into it!
|
|
|
Post by Olive on Jun 20, 2011 8:11:15 GMT -5
Just a quick apology that none of us mods saw Invision's post earlier. Personal insults that have no basis and serve no purpose other than to, well, personally insult, will not be tolerated.
Happy discussing.
|
|
|
Post by Olive on Jun 20, 2011 8:01:33 GMT -5
Wench. Apparently, it's much more socially appropriate to call someone a "wench" instead of a "bitch". I'll take it. Plus, the looks people give me and the question "...Did you just call me a wench?" is hilarious. I do this! All the time! Of course, in a moment of surprise (and silly) anger in my creative writing class last fall, I suddenly leaned forward and shouted "you WHORE!" at a girl. (We had to go around the room and say at least one positive thing about a piece, when we were workshopping. After that it was a free-for-all to rip it to shreds. She said the exact thing I was going to say, and I had nothing else.) Luckily, that wasn't the strangest thing I had done in class, and the girl was totally ok with it.
|
|
|
Post by Olive on Jun 16, 2011 8:06:15 GMT -5
One of my professors (actually, the head of my department) is a zombie. I'm not kidding. He tells the story at least once a semester, and it's fantastic. What story? Details! Well, about 6 or 7 years ago, he was having heart issues and went in for surgery. He had an allergic reaction to this dye that they were using beforehand, and went into anaphylactic shock. It got so bad that his entire body swelled and oxygen to his brain was cut off. One of the doctors did CPR for so long that he cracked most of the guy's ribs before a nurse convinced him to stop. They also had to open him up and pull out most of his internal organs so that they weren't totally destroyed by the pressure. I can't remember how long he was "brain dead" for, but I know at some point they "induced" a coma and were able to re-insert his organs. A couple days later, a nurse was in the room cleaning up. They all basically regarded him as dead, but as he technically wasn't yet, they decided to let him hang out in the coma for a while longer. Well, the poor nurse jumped 5 feet in the air and ran screaming out of the room because my prof suddenly woke up and started talking. They really don't understand what the hell happened, and the only brain damage that he suffered was to parts of his memory. He's in some textbook now. And a zombie. And one of the most entertaining profs I've ever had.
|
|
|
Post by Olive on Jun 15, 2011 10:06:08 GMT -5
I don't think I've ever seen such a concentration of double reeds... this makes me happy!
Bassoon is my main instrument, and what I play in local ensembles. Bass guitar is my hobby instrument, and piano is what I wish I could play more frequently, but as I don't have access to one, that's difficult. I could probably pick up the flute again if you gave me a week, and if you can wait a month I might be able to make the tenor sax sound decent again.
Aaaand now I'm really missing the piano, darn.
|
|
|
Post by Olive on Jun 15, 2011 7:39:48 GMT -5
One of my professors (actually, the head of my department) is a zombie. I'm not kidding. He tells the story at least once a semester, and it's fantastic.
|
|
|
Post by Olive on Jun 15, 2011 7:29:28 GMT -5
I enjoy Vonnegut's technical style in most of his writing. It's raw at times and painfully refined at others, honest one moment and a massive lie the next. Beautiful.
As someone else mentioned, the way he plays with time is cool. It was really interesting to go and read The Sirens of Titan this summer, having read Slaughterhouse Five last summer. Oh, Tralfamadore....
Mother Knight is also very good. That's where I started with Vonnegut.
|
|
|
Post by Olive on Jun 14, 2011 14:23:04 GMT -5
Yeah... I used to work in a tech environment (it was a LAN center/PC repair shop), and eventually quit after 9 months because of how sexist all the rest of my coworkers were. I was originally hired as customer service (you know, smile at all the men that frequented the shop, answer the phone sweetly, ring up any transactions, address envelopes), but with the promise that he'd teach me some of the repair stuff and I'd be able to get raises based on how helpful I turned out to be. About halfway through my time there, just a short while after I turned 18, we were having one of our overnight LAN parties for New Year's Eve. I wanted to work it, because I needed the hours (I had worked a couple overnights before). He said that I could work it... if I wore a bikini top. Fuck. No. For some reason, I let the lack of hours slide. A month or so later, I started nagging him about teaching me stuff, because he hadn't yet. He danced around the topic for a while, and then eventually he and my other male co-worker explained that they weren't going to teach me anything, because I was just a girl. I've got a technological aptitude. I've always done better on math/science portions of standardized exams, my brain works like an engineer's, etc. But because I'm a girl, I apparently wouldn't be able to figure out how to run a diagnostics or anything... Sorry, /vent. As a chick who built her own desktop, this makes me want to punch those chauvinistic ass-jerks in their chauvinistic ass-jerk faces. GRR. Yeah, made so much sense considering in November (while working there) I had built my own desktop... and he knew about it... and it's still working nearly 3 years later, no problems?
|
|
|
Post by Olive on Jun 14, 2011 14:20:20 GMT -5
Things you post online will typically never be touched by a publisher, so I don't do it much. I kind of doubt it because so many popular blogs were turned into books. If a publisher has no problem offering somebody a book deal for a cookbook if they have a cool cooking blog, why would they have any problems offering somebody a book deal for a collection of short stories if they have a cool writing blog? I cling to the hope that this is true...
|
|
|
Post by Olive on Jun 14, 2011 14:16:59 GMT -5
Loving the debate, folks, but maybe shift it elsewhere? Start a Lolita thread in the Literature forum, maybe? It's a good discussion, so you shouldn't scrap it, but the Most Overrated Literature thread isn't the place (especially considering this heated conversation is proof that Lolita isn't overrated, since it inspires such a reaction from each of you). Thanks, I was literally just about to say that when I noticed the bottom of your post. <3
|
|
|
Post by Olive on Jun 14, 2011 13:54:19 GMT -5
Um, I think red wine is literature. Just putting that out there. This. I believe that this is the most perfect thing said. At the very least, red wine is an awesome contributor to literature/the analysis of it. I still don't see how everyone is going to come up with a universal definition. It just isn't going to work. A universal definition shall never exist. No matter how broad-yet-refined a definition you come up with, someone will always point at something included and say "that's not literature." Because it is a personal opinion based (very loosely) within the broadest definition. This entire thread is fruitless, honestly, but entertaining/a good place to develop argumentative skills.
|
|
|
Post by Olive on Jun 14, 2011 10:39:11 GMT -5
Before I address the rest of your post, kindly cite where the bolded portion comes in. This is pre-Iliad, and post-Homer so I'm not sure if we can use that in the argument, but his mother Thetis, begged Achilles not to go because of the prophesy. Achilles didn't want to upset his Mommy. At one point she even hid him on an island, dressed in drag, amongst the daughters of the king or whatnot. Odysseus had to come up with a way to figure out how to lure him out. I think he presented presents of dresses, but hid a sword and shield amongst them, so that when the "girls" came to chose, Achilles went straight for the spear. After which Odysseus convinces him to come. (you can find it on wiki) Ah, I remember that myth. Oh god, I miss that class so much now.
|
|
|
Post by Olive on Jun 14, 2011 8:33:37 GMT -5
I detest how necessary loans are every year. Every time I fill out FAFSA, I remember my German host-mom-thing complaining because, GASP, next year it was going to cost her 500 euros/semester to send her son to college. She was so outraged, and asked for my opinion. At which point I nearly started crying... even though I was still two years away from taking out $8,000 in loans every year.
And this was my cheap option.
|
|
|
Post by Olive on Jun 14, 2011 8:16:28 GMT -5
Another reason few women go into "masculine" blue-collar jobs: the men who currently work there tend toward the misogynistic. My mom's partner has been working for Con-Ed for the last few years, and has many stories of how awful and backwards-thinking most of her co-workers are on topics of gender roles. Anecdote time: I worked in a trade once. It was a "man's man" trade, with boots and tools and hard hats. We had to go to a company mandated training session which was being led by a woman. She posed a question to the group: "If I came to your site and asked for permission to enter, would you give it to me?" (The idea being "No, because you're wearing a skirt, open-toed shoes, and your hair isn't tied back. All safety hazards.") One guy said, "Of course not. You're a woman. You'd get hurt doing this shit." That's the day I decided to quit that job. Yeah... I used to work in a tech environment (it was a LAN center/PC repair shop), and eventually quit after 9 months because of how sexist all the rest of my coworkers were. I was originally hired as customer service (you know, smile at all the men that frequented the shop, answer the phone sweetly, ring up any transactions, address envelopes), but with the promise that he'd teach me some of the repair stuff and I'd be able to get raises based on how helpful I turned out to be. About halfway through my time there, just a short while after I turned 18, we were having one of our overnight LAN parties for New Year's Eve. I wanted to work it, because I needed the hours (I had worked a couple overnights before). He said that I could work it... if I wore a bikini top. Fuck. No. For some reason, I let the lack of hours slide. A month or so later, I started nagging him about teaching me stuff, because he hadn't yet. He danced around the topic for a while, and then eventually he and my other male co-worker explained that they weren't going to teach me anything, because I was just a girl. I've got a technological aptitude. I've always done better on math/science portions of standardized exams, my brain works like an engineer's, etc. But because I'm a girl, I apparently wouldn't be able to figure out how to run a diagnostics or anything... Sorry, /vent.
|
|
|
Post by Olive on Jun 14, 2011 7:57:13 GMT -5
I enjoy it, but only in very short instances. I think if I read an entire novel in 2nd it... wouldn't end well, for me or the book.
I don't think I've really run across it in poetry, but I do like it in very (very VERY very) short instances of prose. Of course, I've written a couple things that way, so maybe that's why...
|
|