In Which I Establish That I Never Said Five Days IN A ROW Now Did I?: The Five Days Project (Day 3)1/21/2013 To read more about the Five Days Project and how I never said that it would be five days IN A ROW click here. This weeks resolution: I will write blog entries for the next five days (one per day) about whatever my friends post in the comments on my Facebook Page. ![]() Modified this one a bit because I have Netflix and Netflix is this awesome land of plenty where videos go to exist and make you watch things you never thought you wanted to watch (again) until they are there. I am a Netflix subscriber. So for this entry I decided that I would watch the cartoons available under the "80's cartoons that will make you wish you were nine again" section that is available on my Netflix page. This is because my daughter likes to watch He-Man and She-Ra (for realz!) because she is awesome. She knows the back stories of the characters and has already decided that she wants to be She-Ra for Halloween next year and that she wants her dad to be He-Man. I am very, very excited to see him in this. (Furry underwear FTW) What I decided to do was to watch the first five minutes of the first five cartoons available under this heading. I would write my immediate reactions to them and base my judgment off of only those five minutes. Challenge created and accepted. ![]() (5 minutes with) The Super Mario Bros. Super Show (1989): Pizza, check. Checkered table cloths, check. Big mustaches, check. Wassa matta witch you paisanos? Ima Italiano. Here is me Googling what a paisano is. Italian for - "A friend or acquaintance" Also -- "an Independent student run newspaper of the University of Texas at San Antonio established in 1981." Learn something new every day. (New insights gained by re-watching...five minutes) - Kinda like Jersey Shore, except without tanning, or the gym. Mama Mia! Somebody get that guy a cannoli! ![]() (5 minutes with) Garfield and Friends (1988): This episode is entitled "Identity Crisis." In this episode Garfield probably has an identity crisis. He probably eats lasagna. He probably says something mean to Odie. John probably sighs. There's some sort of deep and meaningful analysis in here about how mean Garfield is to the Dog Catcher. The Dog Catcher essentially represents the authority, the cops, the people sent to make you "do work" or "conform" or "follow the rules." Garfield takes it upon himself to take this authority figure down, why? Because you don't get to tell people what to do and cite them and take them to the pound. Essentially, we must run away from the constraints of society, we must rebel against the man. The Dog Catcher is the man. He's there to catch you and force you into domestication. We must not be forced into domestication. Also, dogs are dummer than cats. (New insights gained by re-watching... five minutes) - Heathcliff was better. There, I said it. (5 minutes with) Jem and the Holograms!: Full disclosure I am a Jem fan. She is truly outrageous, truly, truly, truly outrageous. I can still sing the entire theme song for you. Jem... Jem is excitement. Ooooo Jem... Jem is adventure (Glamour and glitter, fashion and fame!) I'll stop now. But the more you watch Jem the less sense it makes. Take for instance this episode where they are kidnapped (in a previous episode) and are being held as JEM and the Holograms in some warehouse. Jem talks to Synergy (her trusty computer who can conjure up whatever Jem needs as long as it's in Hologram form) and says "Synergy, make it look like the police are coming and also put a tiger in the room." Somehow this confuses the kidnappers who are scared of the tiger and then run out of the warehouse only to think they have been captured by the fake hologram cops. This is when Jem and the Holograms make their escape. However, now they are stuck out in the middle of nowhere and don't know where to go to get back in time for their show! The question becomes "Well, Jem, how come you didn't just ask Synergy to call the real police, who could have come to get you and police escorted you to your real show?" This, ahem, is the same question I have when they are stuck on the desert island and everyone is all "how will anybody ever find us, we don't even know where we are?" And there is Jem, talking away with Synergy going "what will we do Synergy if you can't keep up the hologram while we are crash landed on this desert island" but never "Gee Synergy, could you maybe call the coast guard or something and tell them where we are? Cause you are a super computer and everything. I'm sure you can Google Maps it..." (New insights gained by re-watching... five minutes): We are the Misfits! Our songs are better! We are the Misfits! (The Misfits) And we're gonna get her! ![]() (5 minutes with) The Transformers: Optimus Prime is freaking tall. Also - whatever that was that Michael Bay tried to pass off as Transformers was NOT Transformers. That movie could NOT capture all that was the glory of the autobots, more than meets the eye. I like Megan Fox in that movie though, because she can fix cars and press her boobs against them at the same time. (New insights gained by re-watching...five minutes) Optimus Prime is still the man.. bot... truck... awesome. I don't think I could handle watching the cartoon feature movie where he dies. Spoiler alert... twenty-seven years later. ![]() (5 minutes with) GI Joe: First of all, I could sing this entire theme song too if I had to. He's a real American Hero. And he's there. Second of all, why does Scarlet have to wear a leotard? Nobody else has to wear a leotard. And third of all, Duke spends most of his time in these first five minutes sexually harassing Scarlett. See at one point there's some big Cobra attack happening so he grabs her right below her boobs and throws her on the ground so he can roll on top of her. She looks at him and says "Hey, why didn't you just yell 'look out!'" Cause, you know, she is a grown GI Joe herself who could probably get away from a fighter jet or two. And Duke just smiles at her and goes "Didn't you hear, I'm a man of action." Later he gives her some look when she's climbing out of a fighter jet after she just helped him save the GI Joe base in which he means "you did alright, oh and nice leotard." Duke, however, is also given one of the best lines I heard in any show "I'm gonna kick the mustard outta that crazy hot dog." Indeed. (New insights gained by re-watching...five minutes): Cobra Comander and Destro are in a relationship... and it's complicated. They definitely have some love for each other, which culminates in them being slightly annoyed with each other. Well mostly Destro. You can tell, he loves that crazy mofo Cobra Commander, and he just wants the guy to take a breath and relax a bit. Best exchange between potential life partners- bffs - trusty sidekick to your evil overlord happened in the first five minutes of this episode after Destro comes wandering in from the rain into this huge, stone, castle thing that is covered in carved cobras and guarded by cobras with a few cobra accents on the doorknobs and table decorations -- just for ambiance and what not: Cobra Commander: We are dissssss-apointed. You were expected dayssssss ago Dessssstro.
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This weeks resolution: I will write blog entries for the next five days (one per day) about whatever my friends post in the comments on my Facebook Page. Pride & Prospectus![]() It started off innocently enough, just a few pages spread out next to her along the empty side of the bed where her husband used to sleep before he was relegated to the couch next to the heater and their one, thin blanket that he’d wrestled away from their dog Jim. Mara thought there was no harm in falling asleep curled up with the thin, smooth pieces of paper. 8 ½ X 11, glossy finish. She thought about the sound of the printer whirring and the words neatly pressed on paper, printed on paper? There was ink involved, it smelled like the aftershave of great men, or women, let’s not try to gender this thing so much. Or maybe we should look at it through a gendering lens, and understand that in many ways this story, the story of how she fell in love with her dissertation, is a story of one woman, no, person, no per-daughter and the soft caress of pages against skin, the high that comes from a first chapter, the climax of those final pages. Early one morning Mara woke up to her husband standing over her. She smelled that faint smell of propane gas that comes from sleeping right in front of the heater. He reached down and fondled the pages next to her. “Mara,” he said. “I think we should go to couples counseling.” That evening in the counselor’s office, which was actually the basement of his house that he shared with his mother, their counselor leaned over and peered at them through his round, black rimmed glasses. “I think I have just the thing for you,” he said. The counselor reached over to his bookshelf and pulled out a thin pamphlet, he handed it to Mara. So You’ve Fallen In Love With Your Dissertation. “There’s an app for that,” Mara thought. She smiled to herself. Mara nodded in the direction of the marriage counselor but didn’t say a word. When they got to the café after the appointment Mara’s husband opened the pamphlet and sat down next to her. Mara leaned in and read along with him. So, you’ve fallen in love with your dissertation. That man meat of a dissertation. That strong armed, willful, challenging dissertation. You’ve thought- it’s just like in the movies where at first I hate this dissertation, I think “I cannot believe this dissertation thinks it is better than me simply because I have a social climbing mother, a bunch of crazy sisters, and I am from a poor family. I can’t believe this dissertation is going to try and break up my sister and the rich beau she falls in love with simply because this dissertation is concerned with whether or not my sister really loves his friend or is in fact just trying to secure her future. ” Soon, though, you start to realize that you actually might kind of love your dissertation. Then your dissertation tells you that he was the one who broke up your sister and sent her into a tailspin of sadness. And you are all “Dissertation! I will never forgive you!” But then your dissertation helps your ne’er-do-well little sister who ran away with some dude to save face (and your family’s reputation) by paying for her wedding and setting her up with $10,000 pounds. Oh dissertation! You really do love me! And you aren’t so freaking prejudice… or prideful… or whatever. And you and your dissertation will live happily ever after. Well, let me just say, SNAP OUT OF IT! Your dissertation is not going to be there with you much longer. You are going to turn that sucker in and then you will get it approved and then your dissertation will swear that you can easily turn it into a book, but that’s not true. You’ll end up scrapping a lot of it. You’ll wonder how you let your dissertation get away with so much. You’ll wonder what you saw in it in the first place. Trust me, I’ve been there. And now I’m a successful (meaning, I have a job) professor and I haven’t even thought about my dissertation in years! Nobody read it. Nobody asks me about it. One time I pulled it off my shelf and used it as a fly swatter. You are too good for your dissertation. You’re better than your dissertation. You deserve more. This pamphlet will help you to realize, you too can get over your dissertation. Mara nodded and sipped her tea. She leaned her head on her husband’s shoulder. She continued reading. Step 1: Stop sleeping with your dissertation. ![]() I have commitment issues. It’s a Sagittarius thing (so I’ve been told). When I was engaged to my now Husband of six years, people kept asking me, “how can you be so calm, you’ve known your fiancé for like five days?” (Actually, it was 2 ½ months). And I thought “Well, I’m just getting married. If I don’t like being married, I’ll just get divorced. If I get divorced, I’ll just think ‘Well, I did that, cool.’” That’s not what I said in my vows, by the way. I think my vows were something like “let’s give this a shot. I promise to give this a fair shot.” Cause what’s forever? Or always? What’s “commitment?” A lot of people would say a beautiful thing that you do to show how devoted you are to someone who loves you. That’s part of it. The other part is it’s kind of nice to put yourself into something completely, and see what comes out the other side. So then you see it and you think “I did that.” Or “We did that.” (Credit where credit is due.) I guess that’s Graduate School. It’s a forced commitment of craziness that makes you commit to sitting in a chair and being committed (literally) to an institution that will make you say things like “Well, Foucault would say”… biopolitics, panopticon, something about controlling the body, sadomasochism… I am fully committed to academia. I love it. This perhaps... makes it harder to commit to other things... like moisturizing. So I’ve decided I’m going to use my multi-tasking can’t really commit want to do it all nature for good and start my Five Days Project. I came up with it when people started talking about New Year’s Resolutions. And then there is always that guy who goes “nobody ever keeps their resolutions, what’s the point?” It’s the commitment really. Last year’s resolution was to moisturize and de-clutter. That was going to be this year’s too and then I thought “I don’t know. It’s hard to buy more moisturizer when I’m supposed to be de-cluttering.” Commitment. So I came up with The Five Days Project. Where I would only have to commit to some resolution for five days, how hard is that? That’s not hard, unless those five days involve giving up caffeine, or caffeine, or ice tea with caffeine. The Five Days Project goes a little like this. “Oooo that’s a shiny thing that I would like to do someday, but it would take a lot of commitment. I will commit to it for five days. Then I can move on to the next shiny thing.” That’s basically how it works. I’ve come up with a list. I’ll be looking for more suggestions soon. I plan to do these things for five days each and see what happens. They are mostly based on past New Year’s Resolutions that I have made. It’s now or never… or five days later…They are in no particular order, and you never know what the next one is going to be. And maybe I will commit to taking five days off from my five days project every once in a while. Any way you cut it, it’s something to do (not that I didn’t have enough to do). It’s a challenge that I set forth for my New Year, 2013. I’m going to do it till I run out of ideas, until the year is over, or until I stop. I guess I should at least commit to it for five days. (HA. I crack myself up). Random Five Days Tasks List – (in no particular order, not a binding legal document, subject to change at any time, open for suggestions). · I will give up caffeine for five days. · I will sleep whenever I am tired for five days. · I will go on a juice cleanse/ cleanse/ clensey thing for five days. (I will probably get snappy with people during these five days as well.) · I will write comments to the top five Facebook posts on my feed every time I log in to Facebook for five days. · I will write a blog entry telling friends exactly what I think about them (mu wa ha ha) each day for five days. · I will read a book a day for five days. · I will eat a piece of tomato each day for five days (I’ll probably eat different tomatoes each day, just to see what they taste like). I hate tomatoes. · I will take a picture at the top of each hour that I am awake for five days. · I will let Arya Barya decide what we are having for dinner for five days. · I will talk to one person I don’t know each day for five days. · I will call one friend in my phone contacts who I haven’t talked to in more than 6 months each day for five days. · I will try some kind of food that I tell people I don’t like but in reality I’ve just never tried to eat because it seemed like something I wouldn’t like each day for five days. (Examples: Scallops, Squid, Sea Urchin, Eggplant, Pumpkin Pie, Anchovies, Fried Tofu, Apricot Jelly, Veal… maybe not veal…) · I will go out to dinner with someone each day for five days. · I will make a music video of my day to the first song that plays on Itunes each morning when I wake up. · I will interview the first five people who respond to my Facebook post about interviews and write an article about them for the blog. · I will write one short story a day for five days. · I will write one poem a day for five days. · I will wear a dress each day for five days. · I will watch one episode of Dr. Who each day for five days. · I will watch one movie per day that is about Indians and then write a review of them. · I will walk a mile each day for five days. · I will write a letter to the author of whatever book I read in my “five days of reading a book each day” and send it to them. · I will call my parents each day for five days and end the conversation with “And I wanted you to know that I love you.” · I will say exactly what I am thinking if anyone asks me “what are you thinking about” for five days. · I will do my hair/ wear my hair in a different style each day for five days. · I will wear something from my closet each day that I have sworn I was going to wear again even though I haven’t and for some reason I still can’t find it in my heart to get rid of it. · I will write a synopsis/ description of the novels I currently have in progress and post one a day for five days for people to vote on. · I will write the highest voted on novel (from votes/ synopsis) in five days. · I will have invite five people over (one per day) who I have never had a meal/ tea with before for tea at my house each day for five days. · I will submit one short story each day for five days to be published. · I will let Arya Barya pick my outfit each day for five days. · I will Swiffer the floor every day for five days · I will visit a one new building on campus that I have never been to before each day for five days. · I will write a fan letter to people who probably don’t get enough fan letters who I am lucky enough to be on the forefront of liking a whole lot. · I will watch a kung fu movie on Netflix every day for five days. · I will write one blog entry each day for five days about the news/ google alert stories that are in my Gmail box about “American Indians” or “Native Americans.” · I will drink 8 glasses of water each day for five days. · I will do whatever Gwyneth Paltrow tells me to do that week for five days (as according to her Goop): http://www.goop.com/journal/make/207/superfoods PS: I sort of hate Gwyneth Paltrow, because I had to spell check her name, and because she is Gwyneth Paltrow. This – is big of me. · I will go out and do SOMETHING each night for five days. (Arya Barya will probably go too. Maybe Husband can come… we’ll see.) · I will invite people over for a dance party for five days – hopefully some of them will show up on day five. Again – this is just a start. I may change, add, subtract as the time goes on. But I figure, it gives me the chance to meet every broken resolution…for five days... Five Day Task #1: I will write blog entries for the next five days (one per day) about whatever my friends post in the comments on my Facebook Page. Day one starts tomorrow… |
About This Blog:This is the stuff I do to survive Graduate School.
It's also other stuff I do in life. My life is mostly Graduate School. AuthorCutcha RIsling Baldy is a PhD Candidate in Native American Studies at UC Davis. Archives
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