She loves he who she is not allowed to love because she is not allowed to love him. Her affection for Pyotr is a form of rebellion. She is old enough to love, but still immature enough to that “fighting the power” appeals to her. It is, in fact, rebellion, not Pytor that she loves.

She is a controling bitch. She dominates and manipulates Vladimir, and her love for Pytor is really only existant because she whats to determine and control her own life.

Upadte: So, looking back on the calendar, I only see the assignments for The Nose (which I did), the one on Romanticism (which I did), and the Love Letter (which I made up in this post) but I’m pretty sure there’s another one I need to do…

#1: Love letter blog from Onegin

Dear Mrs. Kubla Khan

When I address you as Dear, I truly mean it. I love you so much, but I have been afraid to tell you in person because I feel like Mr. Kubla Khan will probably kill me. So I’m writing this to you as I prepare to leave forever. I love you with my whole heart. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you (except give you my Dr. Pepper, because that stuff is awesome.) Where ever you are, know that I am always with you. I am saddened that I will never see you again, but relieved that you now know how I feel. I’ll love you forever.

With love, Simon the Leper

Indeed the nose was correct. It had been baked into a loaf of bread.

“Ouch” it thought, as the loaf was being sliced. The knife nearly cut the nose cleanly in half. Only a few moments later, the nose was thrown against the wall. “Where is my face? I don’t like being tossed around like this at all.”

In the following hour, the nose had been jostled, bang, and dropped more times than it could count. Eventually, everything became calm. The nose knew something was wrong at this instant. Suddenly, it was in free fall. Splash! The nose fell into the river. In great despair it thought “I will never feel my face again!”

…

After a long time, long enough that the nose could not exactly remember what had happened, it found itself back on its face. “What a joyous day” it thought. “I never want to leave my face again!”

Knock. Knock.

Giovanni Auditore was awaken from his deep sleep by a faint knock on his apartment’s front door. He had been having what would be a simple mundane dream by any other man’s account. In this simple state of processing, Giovanni had been sitting alone in a confession booth. Waiting. Wondering. He felt no sadness, no anger, no remorse. Neither did he feel joy, peace, or strength. At least, He did not feel these of himself. What Giovanni did feel was awareness, empathy. He felt fear, happiness, heartbreak, love, and regret, not of his own, but of others. He could hear the excitement young children playing in the fields; he could see a loved one slowly dieing right in front of him; he could taste the lips of the first kiss of true love; he could feel the bruises of physical abuse. It was as if Giovanni was feeling the emotion of ten thousand others; he was surrounded by love and hate, joy and sorrow. He was feeling so much that he was unable to know for certain if his heart would fail him or if he would simply slip away into the dark. He was surrounded by the emotions of every person, and yet he was alone, sitting in that dimly lit booth. Waiting.

Knock. Knock.

Giovanni quickly sat up. His heart was about to beat out of his chest. It was pitch black. It was completely silent. Even the bush-crickets had fallen silent in the night, retiring once they could be certain no one could here their song. Not a sound was being made, and yet the ring of silence was so defining that Giovanni almost felt physical pain.

KNOCK. KNOCK.

“Coming” yelled Giovanni into the dark as he realized that the sound of substance was so much more powerful than the sound of silence. Giovanni got himself out of bed and fumbled over to the door, at which he undid that latch and began to open it. As he turned the knob, Giovanni was surprised to find that the door, which had always been unbearably heavy, now swung open wide, as if it were inviting this unknown guest into the house without any consent from its owner who felt himself the proper master of all things within his grasps. Giovanni quickly discarded this ridiculousness, citing the wind as a probable cause for this unusual occurrence.

In the doorway stood a tall slender woman wearing a long red dress. Her head was petite with her nose extending no more than a few centimeters. This brought attention to her smooth cheek and jaw lines and the warm glow of her skin. Her lips were thin yet inviting and accentuated by her vibrant green eyes, and her amber hair was full and wavy extending just beyond the bottom of her shoulder blades. To Giovanni, she looked like no woman possibly could. He did not say a word. He stood there confident and composed, as he always was around others, but silent. Waiting. Waiting for this woman to explain the reasons she had disturbed this man in the middle of the night. She too stood quietly.

In the next instant, something occurred which Giovanni could not explain. He could see the woman, not just her face from his own eyes. He could see her from every angle. He could feel her, not only as touch. Giovanni could feel what it was to be another person. Instantly shock by this new revelation, he realized that he could see himself. He looked upon himself as a doctor looks upon a new born child. He was seeing himself from outside his own body.

Giovanni was by this time frightened. He tried to step away from the door but found that he had no control of his body. He shifted his frame of reference away, looking upon himself adjacent to the door. He could be everywhere without being anywhere. He was more omniscient than he was present. He stared at himself as the woman slowly walked away into the darkness.

Andy Warhol did this cover art for the album The Velvet Underground and Nico by the band of the same name which he was managing at the time

In World Lit class, we are focusing our first semester on Magical Realism, which is a subset of Avant-garde literature, and so, to understand Magical Realism better, we’ve been ask to study the Avant-garde genre. Specifically, we’re putting a lot of attention in the visual art movement since it spawned the musical and literature movements. This is a good thing for me because I’m not very familiar with visual art, but of that little bit, I’m most familiar with Avant-garde and post-modernism (which, at times, bleeds into one another.) The two visual art subgenres I’m going to talk about are Dada and Pop Art. To be “Avant-garde” the work must challenge existing norms in some form or fashion while maintaining some form of structure, and both Dada and Pop Art do that superbly.

Pop Art is the visual art genre that I am undoubtedly most familiar with. In fact, my favorite artists are tied between Andy Warhol (Pop Art) and Jason Pollock (Abstract Expressionism.) Pop Art uses visual aspects of popular culture to comment on that culture. Warhol got his start in advertising, and thus much of his works revolve around brand logos and trademarks. Most people are familiar with his Campbell’s soup cans. Basically, he’s commenting that all of American society is interconnected by the products we use. His fascination with how products and markets connect us all is the same as the fascination people have now with the internet. Another of my favorite Pop Artists is Roy Lichtenstein. He’s the guy who did all of his images in an exaggerated, tri-dot style used in older newspapers and comic books.

I’m also very interested in punk rock which is derived from the Avant-garde visual art movement. In fact, Andy Warhol is probably as important to Avant-garde music as he is art. Warhol lived an eccentric life, to say the least, during which he pushed the boundaries of the norm in every aspect of his life. He was responsible for getting The Velvet Underground, arguably the first punk rock band ever, started. Because of this, Avant-garde rock did not get started until 1967 when The Velvet Underground released their first album, The Velvet Underground and Nico. One of the best examples of how The Velvet Underground pushed our culture is in their song “Heroin.” Before this album, rock and pop music was all about dancing, “grooving,” and other things that were purely entertainment based. The Velvets’ music was about the ideas, not easy listening. “Heroin” uses tons of feedback, syncopation, and crescendos to serve as a representation of a heroin rush. Muscly and lyrically it’s very disturbing and challenging. It was something that went against everything that was acceptable to talk about in the 60s. It’s not for or against drug use, but it’s brutally honest. The music and the lyrics combine to describe Lou Reed’s (the vocalist and writer of the song) love-have relationship with the opiate. It’s a powerful song to say the least. Listen to it here.

I would define a “national eating disorder” as the gross over-consumption of food products by the members of a nation to the extent that it has become a part of that nations culture. I think this definitely describes the United States today. In fact, we have a national consuming disorder: a gross over-consumption in general that has been ingrained in our national culture. For example, the United States’s* exports plateaued at around $1 trillion to $1.2 trillion while our imports continued to rise exponentially to almost $1.8 trillion. That’s SIX HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS in the red. I would describe that as a gross over-consumption that has become a piece of our overall culture.

*Since “United States” is singular, but “States” by itself is plural. So is the plural of “United States” “United States’” or “United States’s”

My hair used to be longer

So, now I’ve started to use this blog for my next lit class which is “modern world lit.” My first blog assignment was for an introduction post, which made me realize that I have not done a formal introduction of myself on my own blog. So, needless to say, this post should explain who I am, what I do, and why I do it.

My full name is Christopher Stephen Barrick, and I just go by Chris. I live in Sky Valley, Georgia, The United States of America. Sky Valley is this tiny city (200 year round residents) which is basically a golf resort community. My dad tells me that Sky Valley was one of the coolest places in the late 70s and 80s, but as far as I can tell, the cool young people that made this an awesome place 30 years ago are now 30 years older and no new youth have lived in Sky Valley for some time. In fact, I bet I’m the only person under 40 in Sky Valley.

On the subject of my age, I was born on the 24th of October in 1992. That means I’m 17 at this instant as I write this post and will be 18 in the near future. I go to a private school about 5 miles away from my home in a place called Rabun Gap, Georgia. The school is aptly named Rabun Gap Nacoochee School. It’s a “mostly” boarding school, though I drive to school every day. I’m in my senior year (class of 2011) and ready to get out, although I have enjoyed my time here. I’m one of only 7 students in our class of 76 who has been at this school since the very first year, 6th grade.

I love thinking. I guess you could say that’s what I do, but it’s also what you do. Everyone thinks. I just try to be conscious of everything that goes through my mind and make my thoughts worth while.  I also love computers. I think a love of thinking goes hand in hand with a love of logic, which is all a computer is: a logic machine.

The beauty of a computer is that it provides information, utilities, productivity, connectivity, and all of these other surprisingly, humanly abstract gifts through a very basic bit-wise boolean logic system. That’s why I love computer programing. When you program, you take a language, an abstract idea in and of itself, which you use to describe series of action, reactions, and interactions that build up from these ones and zeros into numbers and words and then into objects, relationships, protocols, and procedures: things which are intangible yet vital to the way we as people think. Programing is getting in the mud and mortar that glues the concrete and the abstract together and ultimately coming out with a better understanding of both. (That last sentence is epic; I hope it becomes some famous quote someday.)

That’s just the start of what makes me up. I also love music, culture, philosophy, order, chaos, art, ideas, and so much more. I wish I had time to explain my love of each of those as I did my love of programing, but I don’t. I will say though, that I think literature is one of the best ways to explore everything I love and I really look forward to learning in my modern world lit class.

P.S. Aside: I always put a comma before the “and” or “or” in a list of items in the English language, except for a very specific reason. That comma is called an “Oxford Comma” because Oxford says it needs to be there, and I agree. If anyone really needs to know why it has to be there, just ask. I don;t have time to explain right now, but I’m tired of people asking me why I put it there.

I’ll start by describing my summer vacation very simply: this summer, I worked… a lot. To be more specific, I worked two jobs, one at Subway and one at the local golf course, with an average of 55 hours a week. I also worked as assistant/tech support for two of my teachers. I’ve worked so much that I’m looking forward to school as a time to relax (something is very wrong with this picture.) But I’ve made over $4000 this summer, so that makes up for it. Also, as you can tell from my previous post, my laptop died in the first weeks of my summer break. I’ve still had access to a computer, but I haven’t appreciated the convenience of a laptop for some time until I lost mine. I now recognize that even the small stuff like being able to write a blog post from my bed rather than my desk is immensely valuable to me. Anyway, with the funds I recently acquired, I purchased a new laptop. It’s a Dell Studio 15 (1558) with 4gb ram, an Intel i7 Q740 processor, and tons of other stuff. It took me weeks to sift through the various available upgrades, research pros and cons, and analyze my situation and what I wanted from a laptop. Since I wanted to get one that would last me through college and since I wanted to major in something computer related, The things I needed most were performance (for running powerful applications that I will hopefully develop) and longevity. My final configuration came to just over $1100, and I also purchased a netbook for my mother (just don’t tell her until her birthday.)

Well, I’m going to draw this post to a close a little early and follow up with more informative posts to help me deflate and organize my thoughts I’ve had this summer. Here’s a list of things I want to talk about.

• I want to finish my write up on the organization and procedures of the mind
• I want to talk about my opinion of the book Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein. I’ll give you a hint, I loved the book.
• I want to talk about the good and evil companies of the 21st century technology world. (Google = the best company ever; Microsoft = a company that’s doing better all the time; Oracle = evil incorporated)
• I want to talk about my recent ideas for a unified identification system for the internet, a single service to handle authentication services and store ID information thus reducing the vast amounts of duplicate information around the world describing myself (and all individuals using the internet) while at the same time fostering integrated technologies. (I lay in my bed one night thinking about this for hours as I tried to go to sleep.)
• I want to talk, and always will want to talk, about music and programing. (I can’t do both at the same time, though.)

It will boot into Windows, but after usage for a minute or so, it gives me the Blue Screen of Death with a different memory related error every time. That means that either one of my RAM sticks has died of the memory controler has died. In the first case, my laptop is way too slow without one of my RAM sticks, and its 5 years old so I don’t think I can find new RAM. The second case is much worse and more likely. It’s worse because the means that part of the northbridge is going bad on my motherboard. It’s more likely because my USB ports have been going bad for about a year, so I know part of the southbridge is/was dying. It seems logical that if part of the motherboard was going bad that the new problem is related.

If it’s the mobo, it can’t be fixed (without spending more than a small fortune.) It has been an amazing computer for the past 5 years, way better than I’d expected. Laptop, I love you and I’ll miss you.

Oh well, I quess this gives me an excuse to shop for a Macbook, but the snesation will be bitter-sweet.