and i will miss the train ride in
☼ I am officially done with this semester! It's been a long one so I'm grateful it's done. (I technically have one more class tomorrow morning to discuss the end of W&P but since I've finished, I don't need to do anything else.) So let's talk about this semester a bit, hm?
American Frontier and Spirit from Anastasia Crittenton on Vimeo.
So this is the video my group and I made for our final in our Survey of American Cinema class. Each group got a theme at the start of semester and we get the American Frontier and Spirit. We started out with several ideas (breaking out of the western idea, playing with the hero's journey) and eventually went with the Frontier of the 1960s so that's what this video is all about, using the films Easy Rider, Bonnie and Clyde, To Kill A Mockingbird, and Star Wars. So go ahead and check it out if you want! As a trigger warning, there is violence and we do use footage from JFK and Bobby's assassinations (we actually got some gasps in class when we showed it). Also, I desperately wanted to end the video on Atticus but alas, it didn't work out~
I also finished my last paper last night - the final paper for my independent study on television fandom! I ended up writing a paper on the relationship between fans and the cast and crew and arguing that a supportive, open relationship between the two benefits both parties and the show itself. I talked about Chuck, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Steven Moffat, LOST, and Firefly, while mentioning some others. I loved that I was able to do this independent study. :)
☼ As I said, this semester has been the longest and toughest of any semester so far for me for a myriad of reasons I don't want to get into right now (mostly because I've been doing well at beating them all and so I don't want to dwell). Interestingly, War & Peace actually has a really good impact on me and sort of helped me through it all.
Also my class was surprised to learn that I agree with them that Andrei can be a selfish dick. Because I can't possibly love a character and still be aware of their flaws, noooooooo.
[Russian literature feels oh god help]
→ I really did love this book and I will be the first to admit that I thought I was going to be lukewarm about it or that it could never compare to Dostoyevsky and yet I connected with it in ways I never thought I would. It feels to me that I just happened to read it at the right time in my life and while it was for class, I ended up enjoying it so much that it didn't feel like it was for class anymore.
What I loved most about were all the rich characters. They were so delightful and infuriating and human and I loved all the numerous relationships of all kinds. They were really what made this novel so wonderful to me which is why when Tolstoy would occasionally go on his own rants about philosophy, I got a little weary. Especially with the second epilogue which ended the novel so abruptly. Sometimes the philosophizing was interesting but other times it felt a little like pandering. Mostly because a lot of main characters are representations of philosophy themselves (especially Pierre as Hegel and Andrei as Kant) so I liked when he used them to show us philosophy, rather than telling us as he often did.
Still, I am so so glad I read this book. And I absolutely believe it'll be a book I read again in my life.
→ SO PRINCE ANDREI BOLKONSKY MY HEART MY LOVE MY DARLING ♥♥♥ As I said above, I am fully aware of his flaws. He is incredibly selfish and quite aloof and out of touch with his emotions. I don't believe he's the villain my class likes to make him out to be (seriously, they pretty much think he's the scum of the earth) but rather what he is is human. And he's just more selfish than they're willing to forgive him for.
However, he was a big reason this book became such an anchor for me. I didn't really see myself in him or anything but just... connecting with him and sympathizing with him, despite his flaws, really helped me this semester. By being nice to him, I was able to be nicer to myself. I think he is really such a wonderful character and I think he had an incredible growth over the course of the novel. His death was definitely hard for me to read, despite how beautifully written it was.
Andrei was interesting for me because I was drawn to him from pretty much the moment we met him, even when he wasn't saying anything at the party. In some way, I just knew he was going to be a special character to me and I just kdfgjhdkfg I have a lot of feelings about this character. He's my typical male character (well, one of the typical types I go for) but he was just so eloquently written by Tolstory, even his flaws had some beauty in the them the way Tolstoy wrote. He remained selfish even through his death and yet he made some important realizations as well. UGH I JUST REALLY REALLY LOVE THIS CHARACTER.
→ I also still love Natasha forever and ever and everrrrrrrrrrr. People who blame her for her affair with Anatole (especially if they don't also blame Anatole and just chalk it up to that being his character), I want to stab them in the face. She is so colorful and lively and wonderful. And that is exactly why I don't like her and Pierre. They did seem happy at the end and I'm glad she seemed at least content with her family life but the fact that Tolstoy flat-out writes that she lost her soul is incredibly tragic. She only rarely sings and there's no light in her eyes anymore and it just really breaks my heart.
She clearly still loves Andrei (after all, if Pierre had reason to be jealous so she never talked about him....) and I think he really was her kind of love of the novel. More than anything, though, I really believe part of Natasha and Pierre getting together was their mutual love of Andrei. The thing that really linked them was how much they both deeply and intensely loved Andrei and I just dkfjghkjdhgdkfg NATASHA BABY
→ I'm still ambivalent on Pierre at best.
→ ANATOLE IS ACTUALLY THE WORST ARRRRRRGGGHHHH H8 U
→ this novel you guys sobbing
→ We also watched the Hollywood version with Audrey Hepburn, Mel Ferrer, and Henry Fonda! It was... delightful but most certainly not W&P. It was Hollywood want to do a romance with Audrey and Mel and Henry in period clothing but it was shallow and lost all of Tolstoy's depth. They're all lovely though. Mel was far too charming for Andrei though, oops.
→ Annnnnd we just watched Woody Allen's Love and Death which I thought was just so so delightful.
☼ I've been having a lot of Harry Potter feelings lately. AND NOT JUST MARAUDERS FEELINGS (though I am, as always, having a lot of feelings about them too). I've just kind of been missing... everything. I want to re-read all the books and re-watch all the movies. In fact I might do that over break - or at least re-read a book or two perhaps. I just really miss the universe and all. End of an Era by Oliver Boyd and Remembralls came on iTunes the other day and I was just having SO MANY FEELINGS. So yes.
I also filled out another app at hh-stamping but this time for my romantic match. Annnnnd it looks like I'm going to get Lily. Remember how I was stamped as James/Sirius? Yeah. MY LIFE I ACTUALLY CAN'T SO DELIGHTFUL. Also A Very Potter Senior Year is a thing that's happening and I can't wait!
☼ So I fly home Wednesday and skypirateb arrives Saturday morning (NOPE NOT READY FOR THIS DON'T TALK TO ME). I feel like I still have so much to do to get ready for errything and have done like no Christmas shopping and this break is going to be so busy but so amazing AND I CAN'T WAIT. Also I'll hopefully be mailing out your Christmas cards at the end of this week! :)
Also, I may post beforehand but I may not: next Monday we're going to Tahoe for a week and won't have internet SO YEAH. ILU ALL.
Catch you later, calculators.
(©)
DIDN'T THINK I'D FORGET THESE GQMFS DID YOU DFKGJHDFKJGHDKJFG YOU GUYS YOU GUYS THE SEQUEL IS UPON US AND SOON THE PRESS TOUR WILL BEGIN SOBBING I CAN'T WAIT I'VE MISSED ALL OF THIS SO MUUUUUHUUUUCH. My only concern rn besides Cumberbatch and his fans is how dark and gritty the trailer looked but JJ apparently addressed this and said it's still a lot of fun. Spock/Uhura better still be flawless and I kinda really hope JJ is just trolling everyone with the Wrath of Khan stuff. ALSO LENSFLARE!!!11!!1
American Frontier and Spirit from Anastasia Crittenton on Vimeo.
So this is the video my group and I made for our final in our Survey of American Cinema class. Each group got a theme at the start of semester and we get the American Frontier and Spirit. We started out with several ideas (breaking out of the western idea, playing with the hero's journey) and eventually went with the Frontier of the 1960s so that's what this video is all about, using the films Easy Rider, Bonnie and Clyde, To Kill A Mockingbird, and Star Wars. So go ahead and check it out if you want! As a trigger warning, there is violence and we do use footage from JFK and Bobby's assassinations (we actually got some gasps in class when we showed it). Also, I desperately wanted to end the video on Atticus but alas, it didn't work out~
I also finished my last paper last night - the final paper for my independent study on television fandom! I ended up writing a paper on the relationship between fans and the cast and crew and arguing that a supportive, open relationship between the two benefits both parties and the show itself. I talked about Chuck, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Steven Moffat, LOST, and Firefly, while mentioning some others. I loved that I was able to do this independent study. :)
☼ As I said, this semester has been the longest and toughest of any semester so far for me for a myriad of reasons I don't want to get into right now (mostly because I've been doing well at beating them all and so I don't want to dwell). Interestingly, War & Peace actually has a really good impact on me and sort of helped me through it all.
Also my class was surprised to learn that I agree with them that Andrei can be a selfish dick. Because I can't possibly love a character and still be aware of their flaws, noooooooo.
[Russian literature feels oh god help]
→ I really did love this book and I will be the first to admit that I thought I was going to be lukewarm about it or that it could never compare to Dostoyevsky and yet I connected with it in ways I never thought I would. It feels to me that I just happened to read it at the right time in my life and while it was for class, I ended up enjoying it so much that it didn't feel like it was for class anymore.
What I loved most about were all the rich characters. They were so delightful and infuriating and human and I loved all the numerous relationships of all kinds. They were really what made this novel so wonderful to me which is why when Tolstoy would occasionally go on his own rants about philosophy, I got a little weary. Especially with the second epilogue which ended the novel so abruptly. Sometimes the philosophizing was interesting but other times it felt a little like pandering. Mostly because a lot of main characters are representations of philosophy themselves (especially Pierre as Hegel and Andrei as Kant) so I liked when he used them to show us philosophy, rather than telling us as he often did.
Still, I am so so glad I read this book. And I absolutely believe it'll be a book I read again in my life.
→ SO PRINCE ANDREI BOLKONSKY MY HEART MY LOVE MY DARLING ♥♥♥ As I said above, I am fully aware of his flaws. He is incredibly selfish and quite aloof and out of touch with his emotions. I don't believe he's the villain my class likes to make him out to be (seriously, they pretty much think he's the scum of the earth) but rather what he is is human. And he's just more selfish than they're willing to forgive him for.
However, he was a big reason this book became such an anchor for me. I didn't really see myself in him or anything but just... connecting with him and sympathizing with him, despite his flaws, really helped me this semester. By being nice to him, I was able to be nicer to myself. I think he is really such a wonderful character and I think he had an incredible growth over the course of the novel. His death was definitely hard for me to read, despite how beautifully written it was.
Andrei was interesting for me because I was drawn to him from pretty much the moment we met him, even when he wasn't saying anything at the party. In some way, I just knew he was going to be a special character to me and I just kdfgjhdkfg I have a lot of feelings about this character. He's my typical male character (well, one of the typical types I go for) but he was just so eloquently written by Tolstory, even his flaws had some beauty in the them the way Tolstoy wrote. He remained selfish even through his death and yet he made some important realizations as well. UGH I JUST REALLY REALLY LOVE THIS CHARACTER.
→ I also still love Natasha forever and ever and everrrrrrrrrrr. People who blame her for her affair with Anatole (especially if they don't also blame Anatole and just chalk it up to that being his character), I want to stab them in the face. She is so colorful and lively and wonderful. And that is exactly why I don't like her and Pierre. They did seem happy at the end and I'm glad she seemed at least content with her family life but the fact that Tolstoy flat-out writes that she lost her soul is incredibly tragic. She only rarely sings and there's no light in her eyes anymore and it just really breaks my heart.
She clearly still loves Andrei (after all, if Pierre had reason to be jealous so she never talked about him....) and I think he really was her kind of love of the novel. More than anything, though, I really believe part of Natasha and Pierre getting together was their mutual love of Andrei. The thing that really linked them was how much they both deeply and intensely loved Andrei and I just dkfjghkjdhgdkfg NATASHA BABY
→ I'm still ambivalent on Pierre at best.
→ ANATOLE IS ACTUALLY THE WORST ARRRRRRGGGHHHH H8 U
→ this novel you guys sobbing
→ We also watched the Hollywood version with Audrey Hepburn, Mel Ferrer, and Henry Fonda! It was... delightful but most certainly not W&P. It was Hollywood want to do a romance with Audrey and Mel and Henry in period clothing but it was shallow and lost all of Tolstoy's depth. They're all lovely though. Mel was far too charming for Andrei though, oops.
→ Annnnnd we just watched Woody Allen's Love and Death which I thought was just so so delightful.
☼ I've been having a lot of Harry Potter feelings lately. AND NOT JUST MARAUDERS FEELINGS (though I am, as always, having a lot of feelings about them too). I've just kind of been missing... everything. I want to re-read all the books and re-watch all the movies. In fact I might do that over break - or at least re-read a book or two perhaps. I just really miss the universe and all. End of an Era by Oliver Boyd and Remembralls came on iTunes the other day and I was just having SO MANY FEELINGS. So yes.
I also filled out another app at hh-stamping but this time for my romantic match. Annnnnd it looks like I'm going to get Lily. Remember how I was stamped as James/Sirius? Yeah. MY LIFE I ACTUALLY CAN'T SO DELIGHTFUL. Also A Very Potter Senior Year is a thing that's happening and I can't wait!
☼ So I fly home Wednesday and skypirateb arrives Saturday morning (NOPE NOT READY FOR THIS DON'T TALK TO ME). I feel like I still have so much to do to get ready for errything and have done like no Christmas shopping and this break is going to be so busy but so amazing AND I CAN'T WAIT. Also I'll hopefully be mailing out your Christmas cards at the end of this week! :)
Also, I may post beforehand but I may not: next Monday we're going to Tahoe for a week and won't have internet SO YEAH. ILU ALL.
Catch you later, calculators.
(©)
DIDN'T THINK I'D FORGET THESE GQMFS DID YOU DFKGJHDFKJGHDKJFG YOU GUYS YOU GUYS THE SEQUEL IS UPON US AND SOON THE PRESS TOUR WILL BEGIN SOBBING I CAN'T WAIT I'VE MISSED ALL OF THIS SO MUUUUUHUUUUCH. My only concern rn besides Cumberbatch and his fans is how dark and gritty the trailer looked but JJ apparently addressed this and said it's still a lot of fun. Spock/Uhura better still be flawless and I kinda really hope JJ is just trolling everyone with the Wrath of Khan stuff. ALSO LENSFLARE!!!11!!1