"Sleepwalk" and Stuff on my Mind

Wow, I finally saw "Sleepwalk with Me," only a month later...But I've been busy.
I liked it.
Very interesting content. I listened to the episode "Fear of Sleep" from "This American Life" sometime before. It features Mike Birbiglia and the audio from his stand-up  He talks about his REM disorder. The anecdotes are really funny, until you stop and realize that they're really serious. Like when he jumped through a closed window from the second floor of a hotel. ("La Quinta Inn, that's not fair...you can't force me to speak Spanish...")

I think the most important thing from this film is that it shines light on this really serious disorder. And it shines light on it through comic relief making it more comfortable for people watching who may sleepwalk, or have the disorder. This film hopefully spurred people who have REM sleep disorder to get help.

Mike Birbiglia is so likable. I didn't quite realize how heavy it was going to revolve around his relationship but that content too was realistic and truthful. All in all I am happy that I finally saw it. Although, Mike Birbiglia and Ira Glass are hosting a pizza party Friday, October 12,  to watch the film all together through the cyber world. The film can now be downloaded. Well, at least I got the student discount on the tickets at the movie theater...

I have been working on my Master's project. I have decided I want to work with utopias (or dystopias) found in Russian literature, specifically Fyodor Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamozov. Super exciting stuff.
So, here is the place where I will be fleshing out my ideas. Stay tuned.

And as promised here is a poem I read last night by W.H. Auden. I take it to be about reciprocity...are the stars his lover that doesn't reciprocate his love?

The More Loving One

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How well should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

Shameless self-promotion

In this day and age an online presence is quite valuable and, as much as I resisted a while back, I am slowly creating one. Therefore, even the technologically-stunted Tej is building her online reputation.

http://about.me/matejalane

about.me is a great reference because it eliminates the endless search for social media sites that your potential employer may do. And it shows that you're not hiding anything by readily giving them permission to see your raunchy Facebook profile.

In other news...

This Friday I am FINALLY seeing Sleepwalk With Me, a film by Mike Birbiglia and produced by Ira Glass, the host for This American Life (a man I have revered for a long while). So, check back later in the week for a personal review of the film...I am pretty excited.

The preview of the film is on the This American Life website...

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/

Instead of a poem, I will leave you with a quote from Mike Birbiglia. He is a pretty funny guy...

"When I was a kid I would write songs, little plays, and poetry in school. If you're an adult and you're a poet, it's all about love and pain, but if you're a kid it's, "Does anyone know a word that rhymes with shark?" 

I'm Back!

It has been a year since I have posted anything in my blog! But I have returned to Mills College to finish up my graduate degree. I am feeling oh-so intellectually stimulated and that is when I feel most inspired to share things with everyone. So this is basically a new introduction post. These are the things that have been on my mind lately...

Here is a video I just watched of a street artist Blu.

http://vimeo.com/13085676

Pretty wild! It is hard to fathom the actual production of a project like this one.

I also just bought Aziz Ansari's new stand up Dangerously Delicious for 5$...and it is hilarious. I recommend it, best 5$ I have spent in a while.

http://azizansari.com/

And his blog is very entertaining...

http://azizisbored.tumblr.com/

As the semester goes on I will share my ideas and projects here. I am enrolled in a Sci Fi Literature class (very surprising for me but it seems like it will be intriguing...), Literature and the Commons (I will do a post explaining the idea of a "commons" next week), a Fiction Workshop (first time I have shared my own work!), and a Graduate seminar focusing completely on different types of Expository writing (which seems very relevant).
I will also finish each post with a poem per usual...

This poem was written by William Carlos Williams in 1923. He was known for very short (but sweet) poems. Take from it what you will...obviously very different interpretations across the board. This poem is used often in Critical Theory courses, which is where I was first introduced. Enjoy!

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens.

I'm alive

I am finally home after spending a month in the hospital. I actually decided to write about my time there and hopefully submit it to a writing contest. It will be the first thing I have ever submitted even though I have been writing for years. Hopefully this isn't a let-down...
I was in the hospital due to a gruesome car wreck which wasn't my fault and I was alone. I was also the only one hospitalized which is actually a blessing because the other car was a van full of kids. I would have had to live with that the rest of my life...the old truck I was driving crushed up like an accordion and I found out later that the engine ended up next to me on the bench seat, the gas tank was located under the driver's seat and that I suffered from a brain hemorrhage. I knew none of this..
Due to the crash and my multiple injuries I had to defer my fall semester at Mills, which of course I was upset over. At first I thought I would be able to take a class, especially the class taught by Kara Wittman, whom I had never had before. She was teaching a class called "Story and the State" which was built on the theory that novels were written due to the political atmosphere of the time, which I agree with and was looking forward to. I bought all the books for the class so maybe I will still read them. One of them is To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf which I have always wanted to read.
 I guess that's all that is really new. I am happy to be alive and excited to write my first book!
Well, as promised a while ago I will include a poem with each of my posts.
This poem is actually by a classmate I had in college and this poem was featured in Calpoly's literary magazine the Byzantium, which I worked on my senior year. I loved this poem and I think it encapsulates loneliness perfectly. If I remember correctly, it won 3rd place in the Al Landwehr writing contest, where the winners were then published in the Byzantium. Soledad is a small city north of San Luis Obispo and is not very big...

Soledad

I haven’t talked to anyone in weeks.

Well, not more than a few words.

I tried to start up a conversation with a guy

in a New Mexico diner the other day;

I was hauling a load of horse manure downstate,

and he dabbling in tax evasion.

Well, that’s what it sounded like to me, but

that’s as far as we got.

I can feel the tiny veins in my eyes

poking out like parched flowers in a drought.                                         

Weak headlights and the soft drone of

an aching cowboy and his guitar.  He’s

wailing that breed of sorrow you can’t help but laugh at.

Which, I suppose, makes it all the more sad...

Loneliness, Mr. Alvarez had said

with a sad, knowing wink as he’d handed over the keys:

Loneliness comes with the job, brother.

I roll down the window and the cool night breeze

hits me full in the face.

I’ve forgotten how cold it gets out here.

I light a cigarette in my right hand and hang the other out the window,

arm bent at the elbow.

The glowing stick feels good in my hand, almost like

its warmth could be traced to some living, breathing center –

some reassuring pulse that might keep me awake with a story,

or lay soft on my shoulder, yawning and happy

as the vineyards blur into muddy brown streaks...

But it doesn’t, and the nicotine drains from my brain

like sand in an hourglass, counting the days ‘till –

I’m tired again.

I pull into the next rest stop and kill the engine.

Soledad.

Christ, what a name.

I don’t stay long – gas station coffee,

chips, and more cigarettes – but before I hit the freeway again,

a sign catches my eye.

I chuckle.

At least someone out here has a sense of humor –

what exactly is happening in Soledad?

&hearts

http://fromsea2shiningsea.tumblr.com/

america

I am gearing up to go across the country...and it has me thinking about my American heritage. The scope of the states is overwhelming if seriously contemplated. It also made me realize how foreign my own nation is to me. I am going on a short, short when realized how far I am going compared to the entire country, trip to help a pal move out to med. school in Philadelphia. I have this glorified vision of giant golden fields (probably attributed to reading Kerouac) and ancient weeping willows in the Bayou (probably stemming from Huck Finn). The landscape could very well represent the country itself and its complexities and scope. I feel that it would take a lifetime to comfortably grasp this country's historical wealth even though its age is equivalent to a teenager comparing to the rest of the world...

Anyways, I am excited to see some of my foreign home. I plan to party in Austin, listen to some Jazz in New Orleans, sit on a plantation porch sipping iced tea in Alabama, wonder at the Spanish Moss in Savannah, dance the Charleston in Charleston, and hopefully "find myself" as so many of my favorite literary characters have done while exploring America.
So here is a pondering thought belonging to Huck Finn in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn which I remember most vividly. Huck and Jim are on the raft floating down the river. This is the sense of calm mixed with adventure I hope to feel hangin in the Bayou...

"The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die; and the wind was trying to whisper something to me, and I couldn't make out what it was, and so it made the cold shivers run over me."

mountains

This past weekend I took a trip with my family down to the Eastern Sierras. The past couple months I have gone on a few back-country ski tours around Lake Tahoe. I really had only been on two or three real tours before this weekend and they were quite mellow comparing to this most recent trip.
Here is a break-down:
On Friday afternoon my family, my friend Maggie and I hopped in our Sportsmobile and took the ~ three hour drive down to a friend's 200+ acre plot of land by Bridgeport, CA. We set up camp amidst multiple species of sagebrush and lots of dust. We then headed down to a big bonfire along with many other Tahoe locals who came down for the adventure.
From the camp we could survey what we were to hike and ski the next morning. The middle peak is called Dunderberg and we came up the back of it early Saturday morning, walked the saddle between the two peaks then skied down the main chute.

From there we traversed over to what's called Green Creek. This was a 3000 foot vertical ski, my legs were burning!!
The trip totaled 96 guests.
I can't fully explain the extent of this experience. There is something both empowering and humbling about climbing mountains like this. It not only takes physical strength but mental stamina for sure. I have never been so proud of something I physically accomplished. There is a striking emotion standing on top of a 12,374 foot mountain surrounded with even bigger peaks as far as you can see. The grandiose-ness (why not) of nature really floors you and puts life in a healthy perspective.
Long story short, climbing mountains is a cleansing experience and I can see why humans have been awed by nature for as long as we have been around...
John Muir sure knew what he was talking about when he said:
"Keep close to Nature's heart... and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean"
and that is your poetry intake for the day...
And here I am on top of a mountain with my family <3