UW library scholarship winner 2007

So yeah, totally not, blatantly posting a recent blog because its been months and months and months since my last one lol. Anyway I kind of just wanted to post an essay I wrote that won a library scholarship! I was really happy because I really didn't think it would win. I had to read it at the UW Seattle campus and I was shaking like a leaf! lol.

The essay asked how has the library affected/changed you...

"People handle being a child in a military family in different ways. Some embrace it and find the new cultures and the constant stream of new faces and places exciting. Some are resigned to it and withdraw into a shell of shyness that is difficult to crack. Though these examples may be extremes in a kaleidoscope of reactions, I do think one thing holds true:

We have no roots.

I have always felt this way, that my life was missing that one essential something prominent in a normal person’s life. I broke away from the loneliness constantly moving can cause and began to love the places and the people that flew through my life. And yet, I longed to be connected, attached, I yearned to belong to a place. A place with memories that have become ingrained in the very ground walked upon by growing feet, where ghostly shadows of past remembrances would linger in the neighborhood, a home with a room that could have forever been mine:

I have no roots.

I lived in Japan for the first 13 years of my life, and I love it and will visit it one day. But return? My memories and my childhood, those roots that I have so long wished for, are scattered across its land as if carried away by the typhoons that rattled windows and gripped trees:

I had thought I would never grow roots.

But now I think I can feel them, tiny as they are, reaching into this land that bewilders and enraptures me in turns. I am not just a student. I am a part of this campus and I hope, wish, believe that roots are digging into this campus each day I work and love and help. I can feel them digging deeper each time I find myself trailing my hands across the mixture of old and new books and walls, each time I see a thankful smile of a fellow student turned patron that I have helped, each time laughter echoes and rings through the circulation room. Though these roots are small, they are far from feeble, and they will grow and spread and thicken. I will never forget and will never stop thanking the library that has been the tilled ground in which my roots have finally, desperately, begun to dig through. I can finally say:

I have roots at last. "

Yeah, I got pretty personal...

“There are two lasting bequests we can give our children: One is roots, the other is wings.”

~Hodding Carter



~netta

Movie Preview scared me: Teeth and Ginger snaps

I'm a wimp. Yes, I am a humongous baby. lol. I saw the preview for this movie and the first thing that went through my mind was 'No way in hell'. lol. Okay basically its about a girl who is a virgin who has teeth in her vagina. I guess she goes on a sexual rampage after the trauma with her gynecologist but I have no idea. Some people think the idea is stupid but I think its crazy (in a good way)! XD And I mean isn't that why we watch movies? Because it wouldn't happen anywhere else? I bet the blob seemed stupid to some people, or the invasion of the body snatchers, but there still good movies! Anyway here's the trailer, or one of the trailers *shrugs*

Teeth



There's another cool movie that I actually DID watch named Ginger Snaps. Its about two sisters that our outcasts until one gets bitten by a werewolf. The older sis gets bitten (I think) and starts to change and we get to tag along for the ride! Its funny and gruesome at the same time because her changes are chalked up to growing up to the people who don't know she's a werewolf and I thought it was a not so subtle comparison of womanhood and being a maneating werewolf. But maybe that's just what I see? lol. Yeah I know it sounds lame but it was actually really original, I even watched Ginger Snaps II which was also good. But anyway here's the trailer to show why there good instead of my bumbled description lol.

Ginger Snaps I



If you like Ginger Snaps I you'll like Ginger Snaps II, especially if you want to know what happens after the movie! XD

“Anything I've ever done that ultimately was worthwhile...initially scared me to death.”

Better Bender

~netta

First Freshman class of UWT (TCORE101)

Well, I just realized that maybe I should have chronicled the momentous event of being part of the first UWT freshman class... okay you got me, I was bored. XD For those who don't know UWT is the University of Washington in Tacoma. Its a relatively small campus that, I think, will only get larger. Pros of the campus: The teachers that I've had so far are awesome! Always willing to help, i.e. "E-mail me if you have problems, stop by my office anytime here are my office hours". The classes are small so the teacher knows your name (which is a double edged sword most of the time)! Now that I've experienced smaller classes I can't imagine my college experience being any other way. The library is awesome (Not just saying that because I work there... lol), and there are so many things to help you succeed. I mean, this place REALLY wants you to do well. O_O Cons: Well I can see that parking will become an issue sooner or later, I mean the Tacoma dome can only handle so much! There's no dormitories (though I heard we might get some) so its mostly a commuter campus. But otherwise I am sincerely grateful that I've gotten into this school! It was mostly a fluke, I just searched for a college closest to my house and applied to it. lol. (There's probably more pros and cons but... what can I say? I'm lazy. *shrugs*)

Anyway my first core class was TCORE101. It was a humanities and writing course with an overall theme of self and landscape. Yeah, I know, mass confusion. But it was definitely a different experience. I guess I see it as high school being about the books with no self reflection, and college applying what your learning to yourself. This class was a joint writing and art class. The writing was okay, nothing new for me or anyone who took AP English classes. Analyzing literature and whatnot. The only really new assignment would be when we had to write a paper analyzing a passage against a picture. That was something I had NEVER done before in writing. But the art! OMG the ART!! lol. I have never had to take an art class like that. Instead of 'hey draw this' the professor was like 'draw something that represents you'. And it wasn't just drawing, it could be painting, performing, anything that was considered art. I even made a miniature carving of my furniture (too long of a story to explain here but I got a good grade!). I consider that class to be my first 'real' art class.
Anyway that was my first core class, though they probably tweaked the core classes since the first freshman class were the poor unsuspecting guinea pigs...

Oh, funny thing. First day of core class we had to make big white kindergarten looking name tags to wear. Yeah, embarrassing. Like a humongous sign saying 'WE'RE THE FIRST FRESHMAN OF UWT AND CAN'T REMEMBER EACH OTHERS NAMES!!'. Didn't really help me feel like a mature college student.

It is not easy to be a pioneer - but oh, it is fascinating! I would not trade one moment, even the worst moment, for all the riches in the world.
Elizabeth Blackwell



~Lynetta

love/hate Cloverfield

Okay, I thought I would absolutely HATE Cloverfield. I thought it would be another gay ending like Stephen King's the Mist (which ruined the entire movie for me), but I actually REALLY liked Cloverfield. It wasn't as jerky as I thought it would be because God knows I suck with keeping a camera steady. I liked how it seemed like a real video they found instead of the movie it was. There was zoomin, cuts from one time to another (because who really leaves the camera on the whole time), etc that just added to the overall style of filming. The confusion with the camera in intense moments just made me want to pay really close attention so I wouldn't miss anything. I loved the person carrying the camera, I think he added humor and realness to the 'documentary'. I heard one of the actors before I saw the movie on the radio answering a question about whether or not we would like the ending or would they leave us hanging and his answer was (not word for word guys I mean this was like 3 weeks ago...) 'this is the kind of movie that no matter what the ending was you'll come out of the theater liking it because of the jam packed (ok maybe he didn't use that word but I couldn't think of anything else) suspense that we put in the movie.' And you know what... he was right! lol. I didn't even care about the ending... okay I cared, but it didn't affect what I had watched before it, it didn't leave me disappointed and wanting more. I was thoroughly satisfied by what I had already experienced.... :D So if your thinking of watching it and don't mind a shaky camera then I really recommend it!

“Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it's when you've had everything to do, and you've done it.”

Margaret Thatcher



~netta

One missed call

Maybe it should of been called missed, as in ... okay that insult was going nowhere. lol. Maybe I'll just be straightforward and say... it sucked. I don't know if it was because I already knew the outline of what would happen, or if it is because originals just own harder than copies but I was majorly disappointed in the American one missed call. For those who don't know one missed call is basically the ring meets the modern era. The foundation of the movie is that for some reason these people are getting phone calls on their cell phone from *DUH DUH DUH DUHHHH!!!* the future, where they hear their last dying moments. I know, it sounds like a lame same old same old rip off. Well, that's true for the American movie but the original japanese movie "Chakushin ari" was actually pretty freakin scary (and I'm not just saying that because I'm a wimp with scary movies). The ring tone for their phone is so... haunting and creepy that when I got it for my cell phone my heart skipped a beat when it rang for the 1st time.

If you want it you can get it for your phone too!!! (this is just a link to a site that has it)
One missed call (japanese version) ringtone

Anyway why is this NOT a rip off? Well.... good question. I guess its one of those inexplainable phenomenon? -_-; By the way the "Chakushin ari" movie is actually a trilogy (which I haven't finished *sobs*).

“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”
Herman Melville



~netta