Silence Will Fall

Yays!! Everyone crack open something alcoholic in order to celebrate. As of an hour ago I have successfully completed my third year of university. I'm so relieved to be done, it is not even funny. These past few weeks---well this past month really---have turned me into a huge stress ball. But it is done now! So after this weekend break, I will be looking for a job. I've decided that I'm staying here for the summer, so I'll need to find a new job.

Now, that we have all that boring information out of the way, (just in case you guys care what is going on in my life) I can rant about what I really came to discuss. Impossible Astronaut Day.

If you know what I'm talking about, or at least know what the Impossible Astronaut is, you have just gained like a billion notches on my respect pole. But that is besides the point, Impossible Astronaut Day was Tuesday and I celebrated like the nerd girl that I am. It was really simple, actually, just drawing tally marks on your arms, and if you were really hardcore on your face. It was a simple shout out to all the other Whovians out there.

Now, I shall explain in proper English instead of nerd-speak. This was a day celebrating being a fan of an awesome British T.V. show called Doctor Who. Needless to say this show is freaking amazing, and is easily my favourite show of all time, although Sherlock does come in a close second. What can I say, I love me some BBC. But back to Impossible Astronaut Day. This was a day where all the Doctor Who nerds and fans could show their fandom together, which makes me giddy inside just thinking about. It was all over twitter, and I suppose facebook, although I was the only person who participated in my friend group, which was fairly disappointing because some of my friends are huge Doctor Who fans, I guess not as big as me though!

In case you are a Doctor Who fan (not Dr. Who---there is a special place in hell for people who write it that way) I won't give away the importance of the particular series of episodes that deal with these markings, which can be found that the end of Season 6 of the reboot. (the classic Doctor Who was entertaining, but none of the Doctors got my blood boiling, but David Tennant sure did, and I'll admit that Matt Smith is growing on me).

ANYWAYS, the episodes deal with a particular alien called The Silence. These aliens have a defense mechanism where the minute you stop looking at one of them, you forget they exist. In the show they are the bad guys (I won't get into why I hate them), and are trying to harm the Doctor and his companions. SO, in the genius that is the Doctor, they devise a method where every time you see the Silence you draw one tally mark on your arm. It becomes really creepy as the characters suddenly look at their arms and there are a bunch of tally marks on them, telling them that the Silence is all around them. *Shivers* it also doesn't help that the Silence are creepy looking bastards (picture below).

Anyways, I just had to talk about how cool it was that there was an organized Doctor Who day, and that I actually knew about it (i usually miss out on cool things like that because I live under a rock).  I hope I haven't really freaked out anyone with my nerdiness, but if I have I'm not sorry, as that is what you can expect when it comes to reading anything that I write about.

Doctor Who I love you. Especially the 10th Doctor.

SILENCE WILL FALL!!!

xoxox,
Becca

Mr. Pound...

Hello world!

I am still riding the high that I got from seeing my favourite band Billy Talent in concert last night. It was the fourth time I've seen them live, and I was still blown away and amazed. I don't think I will love anything as much as I love that band....perhaps my own children someday, but who knows. Despite the craptastic weather (seriously Spring, wtf?) I made it there with only a few blips in the trip. It was my first time actually busing out to the Scotiabank Place, and it was terrible, as the one bus that took us directly there broke down, and a friend and I had to ask directions and take other buses and walk forever in order to get there though. Thank goodness I decided to leave early.  The concert was well worth the trouble, and even the crazy mosh-pit pushing fest was tolerable. I cried...yep. I cried at a punk rock concert. They played my favourite song "Surrender" and I lost it. I just couldn't help myself. I earned many weird looks from the other concert goers.

That was just a side note, to tell you what has gotten me jazzed. I really needed that concert as a reward after finishing all my essays for the term and as a little break before I get into exams. .

Now, for the real meat and potatoes of this post. In my Reading Poetry course in University, we studied a well known poet named Ezra Pound. I was familiar with a few of his works, mainly his poem "In a Station of the Metro":

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

I had studied this poem in my grade 12 course on literature. ( I ended up taking three English courses in grade 12, yes I am one of those kids). However, for this Poetry class, we looked at Pound's The Pisan Cantos--which he wrote while imprisoned in a war camp during WW2 (not a concentration camp, but a camp where American or allied soldiers that tried to desert went, to be "refitted" to go back into the trenches). He was an old man at the time, and was put under horrible conditions.
Ohh, I suppose it is worth mentioning that he was put in that prison because he put anti-american propaganda out on a radio station, and he was a huge supporter of Mussolini.
Anywho, in these Pisan Cantos, Pound comes off as crazy and is very difficult to understand. My professor even told us that when Pound set out the work he told critics and people that he didn't expect them to understand him for more than three-five lines of text at a time.  (these Cantos take up an full book). So, in this class we had to write an essay, comparing things and juxtaposing things in Pound's work and we had to determine why he wrote things as he did. It was so tempting to just write "He was crazy" and hand the assignment in, but alas I could not. I'm no where near that brave. So i ended up creating some b.s. about Pound painting himself as an Epic Hero. The ability to bullshit and pull points and arguments out of your ass is a necessary skill for anyone in English, even if just doing a English minor, like I am.

So, in summary: I still love Billy Talent. I hate Ezra Pound and I don't regard him as one of the most amazing poets ever....he is one of my least favourite. He is batshit crazy, and makes things difficult for us poor students expected to understand and analyze his work.

Exam time is on, so my posts might be sparse. I've already wrote one, which I think went really well.

Keep it Classy!!

xoxoxo
Becca