next to normal (complete with spoilers!)

it's almost a month since i saw next to normal on broadway. on the surface, it's a very simple show to summarize: a family made dysfunctional due to mental illness. i suppose just from that description, it would be easy to write it off as something akin to schadenfreude, since after all, theatre is a form of entertainment and this show is centered on someone else's misfortune.
but at least to me, that's not at all what it is. perhaps this is only because it's been years since i was anything approximating normal, but i found it heartwrenchingly relatable.
the audience is taken all the way through diana's breakdown, from every character's perspective, with vivid and all too realistic descriptions of the accompanying mental states. and to sit there in the mezzanine and realize that i have been where she was...well, it was frankly terrifying. the entire show is just so. fucking. real. that by intermission i was back in that old state of wide-eyed terror over where my life could end up.
i cried the entire way through. even watching the family make its way out of that darkest place i cried. but somewhere along the way, a glimmer of hope turned up, and got brighter and brighter with every song (quite literally) til by the end things looked less bleak for both them and by extension, for me.
i don't know where i'm going with this review, so i'm going to stop here, but all in all this is a wonderful show. musically amazing, wonderfully acted, and utterly real. i'm going to see it again, and probably send my parents tickets as well.

funny people: or meditations on mortality

you know when you decide not to see a movie because you assume it's going to be awful, and then it turns out to be better than you expect it to be? i had one of those this week, involving funny people.
if you haven't seen it yet, stop reading and go watch it. then come back to this post.
despite the title, funny people is not a comedy. even though it involves adam sandler. it's all very realistic; from the flawed, flawed characters; to the ending, which feels remarkably uncontrived; and almost everything in between. and funnily enough, it's a bit of a thinking movie. you spend most of the movie evaluating your relationships with people, and there are even valuable life lessons sprinkled throughout!
i know, it surprised me too.
all in all, i really enjoyed funny people, despite not being a fan of most of the featured comedians. this would have been worth the money.

the politics of hair

despite the fact that i've been dealing with the trials of having mixed-race hair all my life, i never really realized that handling black hair has its own politics. i've been relaxing my hair since i was nine, simply because it was always too difficult to get a comb through the curls, and it's always been just a matter of convenience for me. but today i came across this article on jezebel, and reading the comments was a rather interesting experience. it's frustrating that so many women base their personal appearance on what the world thinks and expects of them, rather than their own preferences, because really no matter what you do you cannot please everybody.
i am not my hair. it does not reflect my intelligence, education, or organizational skills. and most importantly, what i do with my hair is not a statement of where i belong. if there's anything i hate, it's being pigeonholed based on race, sex, my choice of major, anything; but especially something like my hair. i change my hair when i get bored with it, and so do many other women, so why are you going to judge me based on what it's doing today? could you possibly be any more stupid?

=)

OMG noise-canceling skull candy earbuds. best shit ever.

an angry rant about beer

beer should be feminized as far as possible. clearly because i have a uterus i am not to drink real beer, but i am also not allowed to drink cocktails if i want them, because they are too stereotypically girly. the only way i am drinking beer from a stemmed glass is if it's meant to be there in the first place, like a belgian. NO FUCKING WAY will i let anyone rape my alcohol by making it girly.
i have guy friends who are girlier than i am when it comes to drinking. somehow we don't judge men who like cosmos, but god forbid a woman drink *gasp* a proper martini and not a floral beer in a stemmed glass! she isn't drinking beer! she must be shown that beer is okay to drink if you're female! let's take away her whiskey and her gin & tonics, because mixed drinks are so feminine!
can you tell that alcohol-related stereotypes make me angry?

tony awards (somewhat) liveblog

minor alert. i am not blogging the awards themselves, just my reactions to the whole thing. enjoy the madness.
8:03 OMG PURPLE DRESS karen olivo you are ahhhh gorg
8:04ish OH GOD IT IS BRET MICHAELS MY SOUL DIES
8:07 dolly parton should definitely be falling over. physics fail.
8:12 NEIL PATRICK HARRIS TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES your suit: is it leather? it shines much. also, you are hot.
8:15 damn jane fonda looks good. and she's 72. I WANT TO AGE LIKE HER.
8:28 GRATUITIOUS WICKED REFERENCE yeah shrek!
8:29 "and btw" oh neil patrick harris for speaking internet.
8:48 i want that purple dress so much and i must go see west side story
9:06 i suddenly feel the need to go see rock of ages. GRATUITOUS CROTCH SHOT WHAT
9:14 liza minelli is definitely drunk already. what. and you know if they turn the music up on her she will be like DO NOT CUT ME OFF BITCHES
9:18 sound fail. gosh.
9:20 I LOVE HIS VOICE and OMG WHERE DID SHE COME FROM WHAAAT that is not in guys and dolls. my high school is doing guys and dolls this fall.
9:28 WHAT are you wearing? both of you. feathers? a stripey bow? seriously?
9:29 i actually think i might love the bow.
9:32 OMG KAREN OLIVO I LOVE YOU she is bawling and it is adorable
9:51 broadway is dark.
10:03 i want to see god of carnage now.
10:08 good lord. the angry dance out of billy elliot. good lord.
10:16 YEEEE GREEK CHORUS legally blonde looks adorableeeee
10:35 HAIR
10:38 oh cheno =) you are so cute
10:43 this has been such fun, evidently i must do it for every awards show from now on, but i am so done for the night
10:51 OMG THE LITTLE BOYS AHHHH SO CUTE okay i am done for tonight

surprises

came home this evening and found these on my desk =) i love surprises

cats and the internet

people need to stop creating blogs and/or twitter accounts for their pets. it is not cute. it is stupid and makes the rest of the universe want to vom. same goes for dressing your pets in doll clothes. IMMATURE. obviously you care not for your pet's sanity. also, it means that you are well on your way to being a crazy cat lady. stop talking about your cat. nobody cares what you think he's thinking. what he is in actuality always thinking (or at least what i would be thinking, if i were unlucky enough to be your cat) is something along the lines of DEAR SWEET GOD HAVE THIS GIRL COMMITTED BEFORE SHE DRIVES ME INSANE. and then i would swat you in the face. with my claws.

bathroom awkwardness

i will never understand why people feel the need to start conversations in the bathroom. i guess it's something to take your mind off the fact that you REALLY NEED TO PEE and OH GOD THERE IS ONLY ONE STALL AND FOUR PEOPLE AHEAD OF ME but seriously it can be so awkward. there are two kinds of awkward bathroom conversations.
1) people you once met, but as luck would have it, you do not speak to and thus cannot remember their names.
actually, this one happens outside of bathrooms a lot too. it's just that in a bathroom you cannot make some excuse and get away politely. and of course they remember things about you that you told them, but you have no clue who they are so you're left faking your way through and hoping that they don't realize that they look exactly like four other generic tiny brown chicks that you met last week and you don't know which one they are.
2) people you don't know at all and have never spoken to, but who also know things about you.
this girl auditioned for my a cappella group this winter and we didn't take her, mostly because we weren't looking for girls at the time. she's since become a really big fan and comes to all our concerts. guess who i ran into in the bathroom today. super awks.
so basically if you run into people you know peripherally in the bathroom, do them a favor and don't start a conversation. most likely they just need to pee.

fall term

yay!
made up my schedule for next fall: taking 5 pset classes and possibly choir, and somehow the year doesn't look like it'll suck!
this is exciting!
also one of my pset classes is harmony and counterpoint =) and i should really take choir to get out of sight-singing lab. depends on next term's repertoire...

anna molly

i have somehow fallen in love with this song. i think a cappella has somehow expanded what i listen to, because i would never have considered listening to incubus in high school. don't know why.
but the MIT Logarhythms covered anna molly on their most recent cd (Give Us Back Our Spyplane) and it's better than the original. both are good, but it's better a cappella. and i am in love.
it's intense and painful. a song for listening to in the rain.

kissing your cares goodbye

the world could not possibly be more awesome today.
i've dropped physics because my comprehension of the class never really recovered from those two weeks of deadness.
this droppage won't negatively impact the rest of my undergrad. and it'll make my grades awesome for the rest of the semester. yay having a decent GPA!
declared my major today (or rather, my undeclared-ness because it's not possible to declare bioengineering until sophomore year). yay, i'm a real person now!
oh wait, the world could be more awesome. it could be properly warm out. and sunny. but it's not raining!

the new facebook

people need to shut up about how much they hate the new facebook. yes, it's imitating twitter, which annoys me in and of itself. yes, it updates you on the mindlessly insignificant things that people do on facebook. no, i don't care what groups people join or what they post, but i am adult enough to ignore that and just get on with my life. and if you bothered to look at the rest of the site before making your judgements and filling my feed with stupidity, you would have seen that only the homepage has changed significantly. do i like it? i think i'm ambivalent. but just like you got used to it the last time facebook changed, you can suck it up and get used to it again. now please, get lives.

why people suck

wow. why is it that when you tell people that things are mandatory they still DON'T FUCKING SHOW UP and they DON'T FUCKING TELL YOU BEFOREHAND and they don't even have passable excuses/apologies?!

this has been a source of frustration for me since about mid-december. people are douchebags. and like i understand that y'all are busy, but if you have legitimate conficts you also know about them beforehand, yes? yes. so EMAIL YOUR DAMN COORDINATORS WHEN YOU KNOW YOU CAN'T MAKE IT!

sorry. i'm one of the co-chairs for an upcoming concert and we're doing intense prep for it and people keep not showing up. and it's the same people always who don't show and don't email either of us chairs and it's just ABSURDLY frustrating. it's probably time to send a bitchy email.

seriously, i was in an awesome mood earlier and then went to a MANDATORY writing session and people STILL didn't show and now i'm just kind of pissed off. but i'm going to play rock band. so it's probably all good in the end.

life = good (or, more randoms)

i have the most adorable bio TA ever. she's tiny and puerto rican. and adorable. honestly, i'm going to all her office hours just to hang out.

realized that the credit limit is actually a good thing, because if it didn't exist i would almost certainly be taking seven classes this semester instead of five. like, four humanities classes instead of two. i am officially a lunatic.

first choir rehearsal of the semester is tonight!

i have a 926-page course reader for my music analysis class. 926 pages of classical scores. the world has exploded in showers of epic and awesome.

in short, life = hella f'n sweet.

first day randoms

i am such a dork. i'm sitting at my computer listening to beethoven's 9th & reading the score along with it.

math TAs have god-awful accents. as if that weren't enough, SO DOES MY PROFESSOR.

i hate being re-taught vectors a million times in one day.

colored chalk makes me absurdly happy.

people need to learn that my having class is a non-negotiable state of affairs. if you want to talk to me, it will not kill you to wait till four like my away message tells you to. stop it.

i'm beginning to think in terms of facebook statuses. evidently i am on the internet way too much. I WILL NOT TWEET. really and truly.

i get such joy out of score reading it is hilarious why am i such a dork?

i like diet coke. it sparkles.

i refuse to make sense anymore.

shoedazzle

thanks to Ms. Fab, i've discovered ShoeDazzle.com. have to say, i'm lovin' the idea. basically you sign up and take a style-determining quiz, and each month Kim Kardashian's stylists pick out five pairs that they think you would like, and you can get one of the five for $39 if you so choose. now that's a lot of shoes, and i don't currently have space for all that. but nonetheless, i rather think i might sign up in the future...i do so love shoes =)

super bowl XLIII

i normally watch the super bowl for two things: the halftime show and the commercials. but last night's game was EPIC. to the point where i was actually glued to the screen from halftime on. i think i might actually make a habit of watching football now. i know, what?

my awesome stylist

i got my hair done today, and over the course of the conversation with my stylist discovered that she used to do michelle obama's hair back when she lived up here. to which i can only say, wow.

internet tantrums: or, why people are depressing sometimes.

so i am apparently officially snotty and condescending. according to myself anyway.

two friends of mine recently posted facebook notes that are basically really long f***-you messages to the world. and i read them and the first thing i thought was "really? being really obnoxiously publicly pissy on facebook? grow up!" and then i said to myself "well i throw tantrums on the internet via my blog...what makes that better?" but i concluded that if you're going to be a cranky ass online and take up space in my news feed, at least have the decency to check your grammar and spell properly. there's no way i can take you seriously otherwise.

hurrah for my absurdly high expectations for humanity. going to MIT really spoils you. in rehearsal the other day someone mentioned that we should ask someone else to scan a document to a pdf file & email it to us, which seemed like a good idea. until someone else mentioned that "people in the real world don't actually know how to do that." and she was entirely right. i feel like an idiot sometimes for not being able to program; until i remember that most people in the real world can't even use fetch. which is insanely simple. and then i get depressed because eventually i do have to function in the real world and i really just want to stay in academia with people who don't make me feel like a genius because i'm really not and it makes me sad that compared to a good chunk of humanity i could be. what a frightening thought.

wow. not even 9 am and i've already hit my arrogant brat quota for like the month. good job me. =P.