I'm currently reading Look At Me by Jennifer Egan. I was stuck in Chicago with nothing to do for the hour before the train left, so I found a bookstore. Nearly everything was 50% off, which I like, which means I'll have to go back to support that bookstore (even when they're not having a sale). They were located in a smallish space, so the books were crammed together. I promptly forgot every book I was planning on reading. Normally when I'm in a bookstore, I let the covers attract me. Yeah, yeah, platitudes aside, how else am I going to find a book? I'm not going to read the back covers of every single book in there. Anyway, I walked back and forth along the fiction wall about 5 times; my eyes glazed over and the individual books became one big mass of FICTION YOU MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE READ. I honestly couldn't remember a single author whose stuff I wanted to read more of (of course, I remembered Dave Eggers and David Sedaris, but I've read all of their stuff, so that didn't help). I was looking at the Dave Eggers section for the hell of it, and Look At Me was found right next to it.

I picked it up and read the back cover. It mentioned David Lynch, who I like, so I figured it couldn't be bad. It's about a supermodel who's in a car crash, and she has to get reconstructive surgery on her face, and no one recognizes her anymore; it also follows a couple of other characters, with the central theme being something about looks, I guess. The parts about the supermodel are told from a first person POV, which I generally don't like, unless the narrator is also an author, or unless the real author does a good job at changing his/her natural voice.

See, authors write because they feel a natural connection with language; they know how to manipulate it to achieve beautiful turns of phrase that convey a precise meaning. When an author writes a book from a first person POV, and does so without considering the fact that authors use words differently from the average person, the character by default uses a prose that is too flowery and intelligent. I don't believe the character of the supermodel; she describes things in a manner that's too ornate, too enlightened, too perfect.

Also, on a level that seems somehow less valid, many of the plot elements just seem so unbelievable. Suspension of disbelief, blah blah blah, I don't care.

Bottom line, I guess, is that I'm halfway through this book, and I don't know if I'll ever get around to finishing it. Good thing I only paid $7 for it.

Dream:
     Michel Gondry came to give a brief talk to one of my film classes. I mentioned that I planned on going to grad school to study French film, and he winked at me and told me he may need me as an intern. He left before he could get my contact information, and I was really sad.

My brother is amazing. I had always considered myself better at representational drawing than him (whereas he kicks my ass at 3D stuff), but this has made me reconsider my position. I saw him wearing that sweatshirt and I asked him where he got it, thinking it was a show or something. He said he made it. With a fine-tip Sharpie. Jeez. Trees for me are incredibly hard to draw, and he made it look effortless.

My mom and I cleaned my sister's room. She's notorious for making food and eating it into her room, and then hiding her dishes. For whatever reason, she'll hide them in her dresser or garbage bags instead of just bringing them back downstairs. This is what my mother and I found:

Note the moldy food that's been there God knows how long. Note the 15 teaspoons. Note the 3 sharp knives. Note the FONDUE FORK (why??).

I got the following CDs over break:

• Fox Confessor Brings the Flood by Neko Case
  
• The Swimming Hour by Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire
  
• Thrills by Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire
  
• Viva La Woman by Cibo Matto
  
• How It Ends by DeVotchKa
  
• Mouthfuls by the Fruit Bats
  
• Rabbit Fur Coat by Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins
  
• Legs to Make Us Longer by Kaki King
  
• The Greatest by Cat Power

And in the loose ends department:

• I ended up getting the Junior Award for outstanding acheivement, according to the letter I received. I get $50. I hope to find out who nominated me and what the hell they were smoking at the time.
  
• I got referred to yet another doctor, this one a specialist in surgery around the vocal cords.
  
• I spent all day Thursday and then Friday morning speed walking around Chicago, and the following evening I was so incredibly sore.
  
• I have a paper due in exactly 24 hours, and I still need to watch the two films (although I've seen one once before).
  

I had a paper due by e-mail on Saturday. We don't have wifi at my house, and my PC is shit. I didn't get that paper e-mailed until today (although I was able to e-mail my prof from a library computer, explaining the situation). I feel like such a bad student when I do this. I wish I had realized earlier that the local library has free wifi, because I would have been all over that.

I got an awesome pair of shoes (Puma 5000m in Fig Red and Tibet Red) at the outlet mall. They were just barely too small for my feet, so I decided to take them back to exhange them for 1/2 size bigger. I drove 30 min to the outlet mall, only to realize that I forgot the receipt at home. Damn. I'll go back later this evening.

Yay for me and here's why:
I went to talk to my French film prof about possible grad schools, and she said she was happy for me to be interested because I'm smart and I'm good at it (and she actually even said, "Yay for you!"). She said I should even apply to places like NYU and Harvard and Berkeley and UCLA, because there are possibilities I will get in. This makes me feel good, cause I was scared I'd end up at a crappy state school, but she seems to believe in me (although I don't know why...). Woo!

I got an e-mail today informing me that I'm getting some award from the French department, which really threw me off guard, since I haven't done anything to merit an award. This proves my favorite lyrics from one of my favorite songs ("Particle" by Better Than Ezra): Mediocrity's rewarded, set your standards low. They didn't say what sort of award I'm getting, or why I deserve it, so I'll be interested to find out. ETA: It's probably some bullshit award like "Semester GPA over 3.8" or some arbitrary number. Meh. If I win an award, I want it to be for something awesome, and I haven't done anything awesome.

These past several days have been really crummy. I haven't been on my thyroid medication (long story), and I got my Monthly Girly Thing™, so my hormones have been entirely out of whack, plus a whole boatload of emotional problems, plus deadlines and papers and all-nighters, plus CRAMPS so bad that I didn't eat anything for 2 days. Based on everything that's happened and the way I reacted to it, I'm honestly surprised that I'm still alive and alright. These past 4 days have been horrible, but I'm starting to see the spring break light at the end of the pain and misery tunnel.