The Wild Palms

"Because crows and sparrows get shot out of trees or drowned by floods or killed by hurricanes and fires, but not hawks. And maybe I can be the consort of a falcon, even if I am a sparrow."

-William Faulkner
If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem
p.119

MEOW

So I got rejected by Stanford too. But that's alright. Only two schools left to hear from. I think I at least made it past their first cut, though.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind is a GREAT movie. Everyone should see it. Jim Carrey portrays a character which is basically the opposite of his usual comic character. Very introverted and bookish and quiet. The whole movie is very engaging and moving. The complexity of it keeps you thinking hard about what's actually going on, and the plot twists are exciting. And I'm glad to say there's no nudity really, despite sexually provocative scenes. I usually like to read Roger Ebert's reviews for movies:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/ebert1/wkp-news-eternal19f.html

I wrote a little poem. The first part is actually a traditional Chinese poem. Hope you enjoy it. Just read it slowly and use your imagination on each line.
---

The old pond:
A frog leaps in.
The sound of water.
---

You.
The frog.
Keep perspective.
The ripples of the w_a__t___e____r.
Disappear.

Here's where I originally posted it:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/valentine014/2552.html#comments

Check out this young lady's live journal if you care to. She's seriously one of the coolest people in Omaha, NE :-P

Washington DC, Our Lovely Capital

For the past two nights, I have been trying to go see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. So I've invited friends to go, but somehow they can only see late showings. Now, the only seemingly reasonable theater around that had a late showing of this movie was one in Georgetown. So we have attempted to find this theater twice, and have failed both times, quite miserably.

The first night, I went with my friend Danny, who I worked on some research a lot during my last year of school. I decided we should try to avoid the online directions since the last road mentioned was Route 29 South. So I thought if we just caught 29 at the beltway and took it south we'd hit the theater. But it was much harder than it seemed. We ended up circling around many times and staying around Georgia Avenue.

This past night, I tried to go with my friend Rachel and I decided that I shouldn't be devising my own ways to get to this place so we attempted to follow the online directions. BAD MOVE ALSO. We end up even more lost than on the first night, and we never see a theater. Finally I find Connecticut Avenue going in the right direction, and head back to the beltway.

Let me just say that DC roads suck. I say this with all my soul. I can't stand them! They're horribly maintained, have incredibly dangerous intersections, and are more confusing than any city I've been to. Even the online mapper can't keep them straight evidently. Anyway, that's my rant, and now I'll take the metro instead...

Grad school

So I've received a few acceptances so far. Here they are:

University College London - M.A. in Pragmatics
Georgetown University - M.S. in Linguistics
University of Illinois - PhD in Linguistics


And rejections:
Georgetown University - PhD in Linguistics
SUNY Stony Brook - PhD in Linguistics

Still have yet to hear from:
Michigan, Standford, and UPenn

Well, I'm happy with what I've got already! I'm thinking I might defer my enrollment to Illinois for a year and do the M.A. in Pragmatics in London. Then I can come back and get my PhD at Illinois. But nothing is nearly final! Thought you all would like an update.