Last night, I went to Carnegie Hall to see An Evening of Awesome with John and Hank Green and their various special guests. If you would like an article about it that's a little (okay a lot) more coherent than this blog post might be (I'm going to try and keep the tumblr speak to a minimum here guys, but seriously I have lost the ability to even) I suggest reading this one.
I love the Green brothers. They are both simply amazing human beings. And John Green is my hero. Hank is amazing too, of course, and he writes funny songs that I love and says insightful things in funny ways, but John is the novelist, and I am an aspiring novelist, so there you go. (Friends who know me in real life should also be aware that quite literally ALL of my relationship advice and a lot of my general life advice is stolen from John Green. So now you know my secret. If ever you are upset, irl friends, and cannot reach me, just watch some John Green videos and everything'll be okay!)
I have been trying to meet the Green brothers for about three years now, ever since my lovely roommate introduced me to Nerdfighteria, and I keep getting thwarted. For instance, last year when The Fault in Our Stars came out, there was a release party in New York City, which I would have gone to in a heartbeat if the plane taking me to study in London for five months hadn't left ONE DAY beforehand. And technically I still have yet to meet them, in spite of waiting for over an hour by the stage door (I gave up because my toes were freezing and I wanted to catch the bus back to New Jersey). But that's okay - hopefully I will someday be a published author and I can be at BEA and meet him or something. And the fact that I was in a room with nearly 3,000 other people, sitting about 20 yards away from the stage, didn't stop me from almost crying when John and Hank walked on stage in their tuxes. (I didn't cry: I told myself that I couldn't, because I had to take a terrible-quality cell phone picture and then be a good little theatre kid and put my phone away.)
The evening was about ten thousand different kinds of amazing. Ashley Clements and Daniel Gordh (aka Lizzie and Darcy from the Lizzie Bennet Diaries) read a scene from The Fault in Our Stars, which was a wonderful, sweet, poignant performance. The Mountain Goats and Kimya Dawson played some songs I didn't know but thought were pretty cool anyway. Hank Green played a lot of songs I did know. Hannah Hart and Neil Gaiman (NEIL FREAKING GAIMAN) asked some questions and later helped do a dramatic reading of a scene from Paper Towns. It was hilarious and fun and the crowd was screaming the whole time and my nerdy heart exploded with joy.
And while I love the Green brothers for their nerdy jokes and funny songs and beautiful novels, what I really love is the sense of collaboration and acceptance that they've spread across the internet. John gave a talk about the genesis of TFiOS and how Nerdfighteria became a thing and he said that the community of Nerdfighters "helped him to fall in love with the world." And that is why I think John and Hank are so remarkable - because it's true. And not in a weird, mushy, sort of way. They acknowledge that there is so much that is wrong about the world, and that nothing is perfect and everyone has some sort of sadness that they must deal with - and yet, humanity is inherently good. People can make things better. And not necessarily in huge ways. People can make the world a better place just by being themselves, by doing little things to make themselves and their friends and family a little bit happier, by doing the things they love - whether that is writing books or making music or posting videos on YouTube or taking cute pictures of cats - with the people that they love.
That means so much to me. It's sort of a way of saying that yes, your dreams matter. You have to work to make them happen, of course, but they can happen, they are real and they ARE important. YOU are important, because YOU DO MATTER. You matter to your friends and your family and your pet and your teachers and your students and the people you pass by in the hallway.
My world would be a little bit darker if I had never discovered John and Hank. I would have so many fewer songs to sing and books to read, and I would not understand that idea of mattering. John and Hank spent so much of last night saying thank you to us, to the community who has formed around them, and now it is my turn. Thank you, John and Hank, for showing me what it is to matter. Thank you for making me laugh and making me cry and making me think, and yes, making me fall in love with the world a little bit more.
(Side note: if anyone has a .gif of Neil Gaiman saying "It's not my fault that my parents own the world's largest collection of black Santas," I would be extremely grateful if they could send it to me.)
(Side note to the side note: if you get the reference in this blogpost title, here is a high five for you. *high five*)
Showing posts with label Nerdfighters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nerdfighters. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Why the Internet is Awesome
SO. Guess who has midterms!!!* Yep, that's right. Me. D: Boo midterms.
I don't have a teaser for you today, but I do have something I wrote for my Personal Essay class. When I got it back (with a nice A on the front :) ) my professor commented "have you put this on your blog yet?" Well, since I haven't, here it is. I apologize if it is terribly long.
When Nerds Unite
I spend a lot of my time on the Internet.
I think that statement is true for most people who are around my age, and would probably still be true for a large number of people if it said that I spend most of my time online. Growing up in the Internet age means growing up using Google as a verb, checking Facebook profiles, and surfing YouTube for funny videos of cats. It has become an integral part of our culture, and I think the truly wonderful part of the internet is that it is an integral part of many cultures. It is something we share.
The first thing I did on Wednesday, August 25th, the first day of classes, (after wanting to throw my alarm clock against the wall when I felt that 9 am was still too early after a night of insomnia) was to make myself a cup of tea and turn on my computer. The first thing I do almost every morning is get onto the Internet and check two of my four email accounts. And then Facebook. And then Absolute Write (a forum for aspiring writers and people at all stages of the publishing industry). And then YouTube (alas, no new videos from John Green, YA author and vlogger extraordinaire).
Even though I do this every morning, I wouldn’t consider myself a computer nerd. I hardly even know what a zipped file is – my best friend is considerably more computer savvy than me, and she had to explain it, even though I still can’t quite grasp the concept. I read books and write instead of playing video or computer games in my free time.
And yet I think the Internet is an integral part of who I am. I have accounts with Blogger and YouTube. I consider many of the people I’ve met at Absolute Write to be my friends. I quote John and Hank Green with alarming frequency.
This tendency to live on the Internet has been coming on gradually. Ever since I figured out that it’s far easier to write books in Word documents on a computer rather than hand-write them in meticulously guarded three ring binders, I have always hogged the computer at my house. When I got my own laptop in preparation for college, my computer usage naturally went up – I feel guilty about it, because my family often jokes that they only see me at meals and that the rest of the time I’m cloistered in my bedroom furiously typing away or staring at a video screen. Which is mostly true, as even without the lure of the Internet I’m a shy and private person.
In January, at the advice of a friend of mine, I joined Absolute Write to learn more about the publishing industry and hopefully figure out how to get my book on the shelves. Then I started blogging. Previously I had figured that no one would want to hear what I have to say, but it turned out that that wasn’t the case. I found that people were actually interested in my little contributions – and that they had little contributions of their own to make.
And then, this summer, I discovered the Vlogbrothers.
I had heard of John Green before – he is the author of Looking for Alaska, among other things, which I had wanted to find and read for a while. But another friend of mine told me to look him up on YouTube, which I did. He runs his channel, Vlogbrothers, with his brother Hank. It began as a year-long challenge to communicate with each other without using textual means such as email. Sometimes John will read from his books or discuss the political situation in Nepal while eating five sheets of toilet paper. Sometimes Hank will play a song he wrote about Harry Potter or explain how to be green without being a jerk. The serious is always paired with the silly, but their messages are clear.
I watched a few of their videos and was instantly hooked. I have now watched them all. All seven hundred and twenty three of them.
I suppose in some ways this could be seen as an essay in my extreme nerdiness. Which is true – I am most certainly a nerd, and I am not ashamed of it. But I am also a Nerdfighter.
The definition of Nerdfighter, as provided by John and Hank, is “a person who, instead of being made out of bones and organs and stuff, is made out of pure awesome.” Nerdfighteria is the online community that has sprung up around their YouTube videos, and, judging by their subscribers list, is a community large enough to be its own country.
It seems odd – nearly 400,000 people watching two brothers talk to each other on YouTube. But it wasn’t long before those videos ceased being a one-to-one discourse and started addressing larger issues. This online community of nerds has done amazing things for their physical communities and for the world. We have raised money for at least half a dozen charities, most recently sending five planes of supplies to Haiti and helping the Harry Potter Alliance win $250,000 to aid in worldwide literacy.
That is what I love about the Internet. Yeah, videos of cute cats on YouTube are always amusing. The fact that information is available almost instantly by searching things on Google or Wikipedia is brilliantly convenient. But what I truly love is how connected it makes all of us.
On Absolute Write, I talk to people from Ohio and Pennsylvania and Georgia and Utah and England and the Philippines and Australia and other places I have forgotten or don’t know about. On YouTube and on my blog I talk about what it is like to be me, and other people talk about what it is like to be them. A community almost as large as the population of Luxembourg banded together as a whole to help those in need. People from opposite sides of the globe interact with people and cultures and ideas they never would have experienced otherwise. They share music and stories, humorous and otherwise. It has turned the Internet into a massive creative collaboration, a place where I can put out an idea and discuss it with people from California or India, something that was nearly impossible only five years ago.
I love that about the Internet. Yes, I am still wary of the downside of such openness, but I find so far that the pros hugely outweigh the cons. I’ve made friends. I’m able to reach out online in a way that I find frightening in person. Through my communities of writers and nerds, I have found that I am not so alone in what I do, what I think, and what I love. I have found a way to contribute to the world, to help make things better – to decrease WorldSuck, as Hank and John would say. I can talk to people whose worldview is different from mine. I can share my opinion with them and hear their opinion in return.
This worldwide collaborative, shared culture is important to me, and I think it will be very important to a lot of people in the future. I’m not one of those people that believes that technology is the be-all and end-all – one small example is that I hate the Kindle with a passion, since Kindles don’t feel or look or smell like a real book – but I do believe that online communities such as Nerdfighteria will have a large part to play soon. Because the Vlogbrothers make their followers think – they pose questions, talk about serious scenarios, ask for real contributions to making the world a better place. I am proud to be a Nerdfighter, proud to have my tiny thoughts ripple across the Internet and create more ripples in other places, proud that my seemingly insignificant contributions actually mean something, due to this wonderful interconnectedness.
I am a nerd. I spend what is probably considered to be far too much time every day on the Internet. And it is probably horrendously dorky and terribly clichéd of me to say, but the Internet has provided me, and hundreds of thousands of people like me, a way to reach out. A way to connect with people across the globe. A way to make this world better. Which is, quite simply, wonderful.
-------------------------
*Also, guess who spent the weekend at her roommate's house and had a really awesome time but got no writing (or, naturally, homework) done? Hehe. Yep.
I don't have a teaser for you today, but I do have something I wrote for my Personal Essay class. When I got it back (with a nice A on the front :) ) my professor commented "have you put this on your blog yet?" Well, since I haven't, here it is. I apologize if it is terribly long.
When Nerds Unite
I spend a lot of my time on the Internet.
I think that statement is true for most people who are around my age, and would probably still be true for a large number of people if it said that I spend most of my time online. Growing up in the Internet age means growing up using Google as a verb, checking Facebook profiles, and surfing YouTube for funny videos of cats. It has become an integral part of our culture, and I think the truly wonderful part of the internet is that it is an integral part of many cultures. It is something we share.
The first thing I did on Wednesday, August 25th, the first day of classes, (after wanting to throw my alarm clock against the wall when I felt that 9 am was still too early after a night of insomnia) was to make myself a cup of tea and turn on my computer. The first thing I do almost every morning is get onto the Internet and check two of my four email accounts. And then Facebook. And then Absolute Write (a forum for aspiring writers and people at all stages of the publishing industry). And then YouTube (alas, no new videos from John Green, YA author and vlogger extraordinaire).
Even though I do this every morning, I wouldn’t consider myself a computer nerd. I hardly even know what a zipped file is – my best friend is considerably more computer savvy than me, and she had to explain it, even though I still can’t quite grasp the concept. I read books and write instead of playing video or computer games in my free time.
And yet I think the Internet is an integral part of who I am. I have accounts with Blogger and YouTube. I consider many of the people I’ve met at Absolute Write to be my friends. I quote John and Hank Green with alarming frequency.
This tendency to live on the Internet has been coming on gradually. Ever since I figured out that it’s far easier to write books in Word documents on a computer rather than hand-write them in meticulously guarded three ring binders, I have always hogged the computer at my house. When I got my own laptop in preparation for college, my computer usage naturally went up – I feel guilty about it, because my family often jokes that they only see me at meals and that the rest of the time I’m cloistered in my bedroom furiously typing away or staring at a video screen. Which is mostly true, as even without the lure of the Internet I’m a shy and private person.
In January, at the advice of a friend of mine, I joined Absolute Write to learn more about the publishing industry and hopefully figure out how to get my book on the shelves. Then I started blogging. Previously I had figured that no one would want to hear what I have to say, but it turned out that that wasn’t the case. I found that people were actually interested in my little contributions – and that they had little contributions of their own to make.
And then, this summer, I discovered the Vlogbrothers.
I had heard of John Green before – he is the author of Looking for Alaska, among other things, which I had wanted to find and read for a while. But another friend of mine told me to look him up on YouTube, which I did. He runs his channel, Vlogbrothers, with his brother Hank. It began as a year-long challenge to communicate with each other without using textual means such as email. Sometimes John will read from his books or discuss the political situation in Nepal while eating five sheets of toilet paper. Sometimes Hank will play a song he wrote about Harry Potter or explain how to be green without being a jerk. The serious is always paired with the silly, but their messages are clear.
I watched a few of their videos and was instantly hooked. I have now watched them all. All seven hundred and twenty three of them.
I suppose in some ways this could be seen as an essay in my extreme nerdiness. Which is true – I am most certainly a nerd, and I am not ashamed of it. But I am also a Nerdfighter.
The definition of Nerdfighter, as provided by John and Hank, is “a person who, instead of being made out of bones and organs and stuff, is made out of pure awesome.” Nerdfighteria is the online community that has sprung up around their YouTube videos, and, judging by their subscribers list, is a community large enough to be its own country.
It seems odd – nearly 400,000 people watching two brothers talk to each other on YouTube. But it wasn’t long before those videos ceased being a one-to-one discourse and started addressing larger issues. This online community of nerds has done amazing things for their physical communities and for the world. We have raised money for at least half a dozen charities, most recently sending five planes of supplies to Haiti and helping the Harry Potter Alliance win $250,000 to aid in worldwide literacy.
That is what I love about the Internet. Yeah, videos of cute cats on YouTube are always amusing. The fact that information is available almost instantly by searching things on Google or Wikipedia is brilliantly convenient. But what I truly love is how connected it makes all of us.
On Absolute Write, I talk to people from Ohio and Pennsylvania and Georgia and Utah and England and the Philippines and Australia and other places I have forgotten or don’t know about. On YouTube and on my blog I talk about what it is like to be me, and other people talk about what it is like to be them. A community almost as large as the population of Luxembourg banded together as a whole to help those in need. People from opposite sides of the globe interact with people and cultures and ideas they never would have experienced otherwise. They share music and stories, humorous and otherwise. It has turned the Internet into a massive creative collaboration, a place where I can put out an idea and discuss it with people from California or India, something that was nearly impossible only five years ago.
I love that about the Internet. Yes, I am still wary of the downside of such openness, but I find so far that the pros hugely outweigh the cons. I’ve made friends. I’m able to reach out online in a way that I find frightening in person. Through my communities of writers and nerds, I have found that I am not so alone in what I do, what I think, and what I love. I have found a way to contribute to the world, to help make things better – to decrease WorldSuck, as Hank and John would say. I can talk to people whose worldview is different from mine. I can share my opinion with them and hear their opinion in return.
This worldwide collaborative, shared culture is important to me, and I think it will be very important to a lot of people in the future. I’m not one of those people that believes that technology is the be-all and end-all – one small example is that I hate the Kindle with a passion, since Kindles don’t feel or look or smell like a real book – but I do believe that online communities such as Nerdfighteria will have a large part to play soon. Because the Vlogbrothers make their followers think – they pose questions, talk about serious scenarios, ask for real contributions to making the world a better place. I am proud to be a Nerdfighter, proud to have my tiny thoughts ripple across the Internet and create more ripples in other places, proud that my seemingly insignificant contributions actually mean something, due to this wonderful interconnectedness.
I am a nerd. I spend what is probably considered to be far too much time every day on the Internet. And it is probably horrendously dorky and terribly clichéd of me to say, but the Internet has provided me, and hundreds of thousands of people like me, a way to reach out. A way to connect with people across the globe. A way to make this world better. Which is, quite simply, wonderful.
-------------------------
*Also, guess who spent the weekend at her roommate's house and had a really awesome time but got no writing (or, naturally, homework) done? Hehe. Yep.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Oh. My. God.
I apologize for not posting a teaser yesterday. I know excuses are lame, but I have a very good excuse.
Yesterday, I WENT TO SEE NEIL GAIMAN.
Aside from the fact that Stardust and Good Omens are some of my favorite books ever and Coraline and The Graveyard Book are the cleverest and scariest and most unique and most interesting children's books I've read since I was a kid, this was amazing because I got to sit in an auditorium with 600 other nerds (one of whom was, of course, my best friend Ella) and listen to grown-up (although Neil insists he is not a grown up) authors talk about things I think about every day. Because I am a writer, and I spend most of my time at school and online with other aspiring writers, I do know that writers aren't otherworldly, unapproachable, godlike beings, but still, it is an amazing thing to hear one of your favorite writers talk about things you think about and agree with your opinions.
Ella and I had no idea what to expect from an event like this, never having gone to any author events (something, I think, that this experience has changed. I fully intend to go to EVERY author event I can from now on). Also, it was New York City. And Neil Gaiman. And the event was free, and on a first-come-first-serve basis.
So we arrived at Columbia Teacher's College at NOON. The event did not begin until 7.
Blogsphere, I think I can safely say that we a) were the first ones there, and b) are some of the nerdiest people on the face of the planet.
We actually didn't sit around at the door for seven hours. We got there, talked to a security guard who was not even aware there was an event there that day, and then walked the few blocks back to Morningside Park, where we spend four hours in the company of a lovely picnic lunch, some SPF 100 (because we are pathetically pale), and a Mister Softee ice cream truck that insisted upon driving back and forth in front of the park nonstop for at least two hours. It was a lovely afternoon, and we started up what might turn into a video blog of our adventures this summer.
At four, we went back to the college to wait. There was no one else there, so we sat down on the steps of what we thought was the front of the building. I pulled out Ella's copy of American Gods and started reading it, holding it up so that any passing nerds could see "Neil Gaiman" in big letters on the front and come tell us what to do. It worked - we met a very nice young man who said he was waiting around the other side of the building, so we followed him. This was when we found ourselves first in an actual line. Whoa.
This was also the weird part of the day. Out of all the nice, nerdy people, Ella and I also ran into a rather creepy guy who was blatantly hitting on us from 4 in the afternoon till the show started a little after 7. (Seriously, I think I must have gotten an "I heart creepers" sign tacked to my back without my knowledge, because although that is most definitely not true, I seem to attract only the REALLY weird people at nerdy events.) But the original guy who showed us where to go was very nice (and also an aspiring writer) as was the woman who wound up sitting next to me. Nerds are great people. :)
At about five o'clock, they opened the doors without telling us and we discovered that there was another line forming inside. So we went from being first to being about twentieth in line, but that didn't really matter. We still wound up in the second row. And we got in, which we hadn't been certain of that morning when we set out, so our goal had been achieved!
And then, around seven, all the authors filed in and began to talk. They were promoting an anthology Neil Gaiman had edited with Al Sarrantonio. In attendance were Kurt Andersen, Lawrence Block, Jeffrey Ford, Joe Hill, Kat Howard (whose story in this anthology is her first published work and was written in 19 hours and then sent off. WHOA), and Walter Mosley. Everyone except Walter read an excerpt from their story, and all of them sounded really interesting. I am not a big fan of short stories, but I do like hearing authors read aloud from their work (I'm going to have to work on that, considering that I HATE doing it...).
After that, there were moderator-directed questions and some audience questions, and while Walter Mosley basically stole the show, I was sitting there drinking in every word Neil Gaiman had to say. He said some pretty hilarious things (including telling one audience member what a question was when he had forgotten what to say), but I think one of my favorites was when he was talking about unexpected plot twists. He was saying that it is not so much the character popping up and taking the bit and running away from you, which I hear about a lot and which has always sort of worried me, because that doesn't happen to me. I've always worried that because that's never happened I was writing my characters incorrectly or something - because they weren't directly bossing me around (other than in a "write me write me write me NOW" sense), they weren't as real as I wanted them to be. But Neil Gaiman was saying that for him, it isn't so much a character running away with the plot as the realization that what you have been planning inevitably and logically leads up to something that you had not been planning. And that, to me, makes complete sense.
After that, we joined the crowd of people thronging around Neil and I got Ella's copy of American Gods signed and could not think of anything to say to him (honestly, when the person before you says that he is an inspiration to her every day and thank you for all the beautiful words, and all you can think of is "Stardust is one of my favorite books, I love it," your mouth just sort of stays shut) and then we wrestled our way out of the building and headed back to the subway. Where, of course, the extreme brilliance of the day was capped by a man subway surfing with a guitar.
And then we went to Port Authority, waited around, caught a bus, and went home to have a much needed cup of tea. There really were too many fantastic things yesterday to take in. Considering that I woke up today with a splitting headache, I think I still can't quite process it.
But you know what? It was absolutely, positively worth it.
Yesterday, I WENT TO SEE NEIL GAIMAN.
Aside from the fact that Stardust and Good Omens are some of my favorite books ever and Coraline and The Graveyard Book are the cleverest and scariest and most unique and most interesting children's books I've read since I was a kid, this was amazing because I got to sit in an auditorium with 600 other nerds (one of whom was, of course, my best friend Ella) and listen to grown-up (although Neil insists he is not a grown up) authors talk about things I think about every day. Because I am a writer, and I spend most of my time at school and online with other aspiring writers, I do know that writers aren't otherworldly, unapproachable, godlike beings, but still, it is an amazing thing to hear one of your favorite writers talk about things you think about and agree with your opinions.
Ella and I had no idea what to expect from an event like this, never having gone to any author events (something, I think, that this experience has changed. I fully intend to go to EVERY author event I can from now on). Also, it was New York City. And Neil Gaiman. And the event was free, and on a first-come-first-serve basis.
So we arrived at Columbia Teacher's College at NOON. The event did not begin until 7.
Blogsphere, I think I can safely say that we a) were the first ones there, and b) are some of the nerdiest people on the face of the planet.
We actually didn't sit around at the door for seven hours. We got there, talked to a security guard who was not even aware there was an event there that day, and then walked the few blocks back to Morningside Park, where we spend four hours in the company of a lovely picnic lunch, some SPF 100 (because we are pathetically pale), and a Mister Softee ice cream truck that insisted upon driving back and forth in front of the park nonstop for at least two hours. It was a lovely afternoon, and we started up what might turn into a video blog of our adventures this summer.
At four, we went back to the college to wait. There was no one else there, so we sat down on the steps of what we thought was the front of the building. I pulled out Ella's copy of American Gods and started reading it, holding it up so that any passing nerds could see "Neil Gaiman" in big letters on the front and come tell us what to do. It worked - we met a very nice young man who said he was waiting around the other side of the building, so we followed him. This was when we found ourselves first in an actual line. Whoa.
This was also the weird part of the day. Out of all the nice, nerdy people, Ella and I also ran into a rather creepy guy who was blatantly hitting on us from 4 in the afternoon till the show started a little after 7. (Seriously, I think I must have gotten an "I heart creepers" sign tacked to my back without my knowledge, because although that is most definitely not true, I seem to attract only the REALLY weird people at nerdy events.) But the original guy who showed us where to go was very nice (and also an aspiring writer) as was the woman who wound up sitting next to me. Nerds are great people. :)
At about five o'clock, they opened the doors without telling us and we discovered that there was another line forming inside. So we went from being first to being about twentieth in line, but that didn't really matter. We still wound up in the second row. And we got in, which we hadn't been certain of that morning when we set out, so our goal had been achieved!
And then, around seven, all the authors filed in and began to talk. They were promoting an anthology Neil Gaiman had edited with Al Sarrantonio. In attendance were Kurt Andersen, Lawrence Block, Jeffrey Ford, Joe Hill, Kat Howard (whose story in this anthology is her first published work and was written in 19 hours and then sent off. WHOA), and Walter Mosley. Everyone except Walter read an excerpt from their story, and all of them sounded really interesting. I am not a big fan of short stories, but I do like hearing authors read aloud from their work (I'm going to have to work on that, considering that I HATE doing it...).
After that, there were moderator-directed questions and some audience questions, and while Walter Mosley basically stole the show, I was sitting there drinking in every word Neil Gaiman had to say. He said some pretty hilarious things (including telling one audience member what a question was when he had forgotten what to say), but I think one of my favorites was when he was talking about unexpected plot twists. He was saying that it is not so much the character popping up and taking the bit and running away from you, which I hear about a lot and which has always sort of worried me, because that doesn't happen to me. I've always worried that because that's never happened I was writing my characters incorrectly or something - because they weren't directly bossing me around (other than in a "write me write me write me NOW" sense), they weren't as real as I wanted them to be. But Neil Gaiman was saying that for him, it isn't so much a character running away with the plot as the realization that what you have been planning inevitably and logically leads up to something that you had not been planning. And that, to me, makes complete sense.
After that, we joined the crowd of people thronging around Neil and I got Ella's copy of American Gods signed and could not think of anything to say to him (honestly, when the person before you says that he is an inspiration to her every day and thank you for all the beautiful words, and all you can think of is "Stardust is one of my favorite books, I love it," your mouth just sort of stays shut) and then we wrestled our way out of the building and headed back to the subway. Where, of course, the extreme brilliance of the day was capped by a man subway surfing with a guitar.
And then we went to Port Authority, waited around, caught a bus, and went home to have a much needed cup of tea. There really were too many fantastic things yesterday to take in. Considering that I woke up today with a splitting headache, I think I still can't quite process it.
But you know what? It was absolutely, positively worth it.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Excitement
Good morning, blogsphere! (says I at 1 o'clock in the afternoon. I have been up for half an hour. But it is summer. Also, even if it was an accident, staying up till 3 am watching vlogbrothers videos is never a good idea.)
So because my mom is an awesome and wonderful person and answered my question, this blogpost is based on her idea. Because she has good ideas.
What sorts of things are you irrationally excited about?
And I mean REALLY OVERLY EXCITED, the JUMP UP AND DOWN AND SQUEAL kind of excitement. The EVERY TIME SUCH AND SUCH HAPPENS I GRIN LIKE A MANIAC kind of excitement.
There are many things that excite and amuse me (in fact, when the aforementioned awesome mom was driving me home from college last week, I noticed that the most common phrase in my conversation was probably "it amused me" or "I was amused").
But amusement is not what I mean. I was excited to go see Robin Hood the other night. That's not what I mean - I was excited, yes, because I was going to go see what looked like a pretty good movie with my wonderful friends. But I wasn't bouncing off walls or grinning like a maniac.
I mean the kind of excitement that leads two grown men (read: my awesome dad and our very lovely neighbor) to lean over our slightly-new kitchen stove and proclaim about BTUs (which I think is the right term? I can barely boil water, so...). It was like watching guys talk about cars... but with cooking. That's my dad's exciting thing. And I think the three girls in the house - me, my mom, and my sister - were definitely very, very amused to see those two getting all excited about the stove.
So if "excited over going to see Robin Hood" doesn't count, what does? Here are a few things that I am, rationally or irrationally, really really excited about.
1. Tomorrow! Tomorrow I am going into NYC to visit my best friend on the planet, Ella! We are going to do awesome things and I am going to distract her from her homework (can you say role reversal?) and run around the city in tomorrow's supposedly very hot weather and be silly and probably take lots of pictures, which she will hate but which I will do anyway. I AM SO BLOODY EXCITED FOR THIS.
2. Peanut butter and jelly. Trust me, when you only have access to college pb&j for the past few months, you get very excited when there is very good raspberry jam that actually reaches to the edge of the bread for a change.
4. This is where we get into the irrational excitements. The other night, I found out that Neil Gaiman is going to write an episode for next year's season of Doctor Who. Had it not been in the vicinity of midnight when I learned this, I definitely would have squealed and jumped up and down and done silly things. Because Neil Gaiman is amazing. And Doctor Who is amazing. But seriously... that's a whole year away! Talk about irrational excitement.
3. Music. I get very irrationally excited over music. I definitely did squeak a little when my Tale of Two Cities musical cd arrived, and my poor family has had to suffer through me playing it on a loop ever since (sorry guys). I definitely spazzed about it to my friend from college over AIM (although this led to me forcing her to listen to James Barbour sing... you're welcome, Katrina ;P). But I had been waiting for a CD of this since... er... November of 2008? Wow.
But to put my irrational excitement into true perspective, you guys get to see just how dorky (and overly analytical) I am. If you did not already know just how dorky I am, prepare to understand, and I apologize for the extreme levels of dork-ness.
Have you seen Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame? Heard the song Heaven's Light/Hellfire? It is the transition between the two parts of that song that have me thoroughly convinced that Alan Menken is a musical genius. It uses a theme that has already appeared in the movie, but in the Heaven's Light portion it is sweet and light. In the Hellfire portion, it is dark and heavy and ominous. And how does the musical genius achieve this transition? A drumroll. Just one drumroll. That's it. And it works perfectly. In literally the space of two seconds, the entire tone of the song changes, and it is absolutely amazing. I literally grin like a maniac every single time I hear that - which, let me tell you, is often.
Now that you have written proof of what a dork I am, and I have rambled for quite some time about it, I shall stop and ask you what things you are irrationally excited about.
DFTBA
(ETA: Blogger, you're mean. Why can't I post an exclamation point in my title?!?)
So because my mom is an awesome and wonderful person and answered my question, this blogpost is based on her idea. Because she has good ideas.
What sorts of things are you irrationally excited about?
And I mean REALLY OVERLY EXCITED, the JUMP UP AND DOWN AND SQUEAL kind of excitement. The EVERY TIME SUCH AND SUCH HAPPENS I GRIN LIKE A MANIAC kind of excitement.
There are many things that excite and amuse me (in fact, when the aforementioned awesome mom was driving me home from college last week, I noticed that the most common phrase in my conversation was probably "it amused me" or "I was amused").
But amusement is not what I mean. I was excited to go see Robin Hood the other night. That's not what I mean - I was excited, yes, because I was going to go see what looked like a pretty good movie with my wonderful friends. But I wasn't bouncing off walls or grinning like a maniac.
I mean the kind of excitement that leads two grown men (read: my awesome dad and our very lovely neighbor) to lean over our slightly-new kitchen stove and proclaim about BTUs (which I think is the right term? I can barely boil water, so...). It was like watching guys talk about cars... but with cooking. That's my dad's exciting thing. And I think the three girls in the house - me, my mom, and my sister - were definitely very, very amused to see those two getting all excited about the stove.
So if "excited over going to see Robin Hood" doesn't count, what does? Here are a few things that I am, rationally or irrationally, really really excited about.
1. Tomorrow! Tomorrow I am going into NYC to visit my best friend on the planet, Ella! We are going to do awesome things and I am going to distract her from her homework (can you say role reversal?) and run around the city in tomorrow's supposedly very hot weather and be silly and probably take lots of pictures, which she will hate but which I will do anyway. I AM SO BLOODY EXCITED FOR THIS.
2. Peanut butter and jelly. Trust me, when you only have access to college pb&j for the past few months, you get very excited when there is very good raspberry jam that actually reaches to the edge of the bread for a change.
4. This is where we get into the irrational excitements. The other night, I found out that Neil Gaiman is going to write an episode for next year's season of Doctor Who. Had it not been in the vicinity of midnight when I learned this, I definitely would have squealed and jumped up and down and done silly things. Because Neil Gaiman is amazing. And Doctor Who is amazing. But seriously... that's a whole year away! Talk about irrational excitement.
3. Music. I get very irrationally excited over music. I definitely did squeak a little when my Tale of Two Cities musical cd arrived, and my poor family has had to suffer through me playing it on a loop ever since (sorry guys). I definitely spazzed about it to my friend from college over AIM (although this led to me forcing her to listen to James Barbour sing... you're welcome, Katrina ;P). But I had been waiting for a CD of this since... er... November of 2008? Wow.
But to put my irrational excitement into true perspective, you guys get to see just how dorky (and overly analytical) I am. If you did not already know just how dorky I am, prepare to understand, and I apologize for the extreme levels of dork-ness.
Have you seen Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame? Heard the song Heaven's Light/Hellfire? It is the transition between the two parts of that song that have me thoroughly convinced that Alan Menken is a musical genius. It uses a theme that has already appeared in the movie, but in the Heaven's Light portion it is sweet and light. In the Hellfire portion, it is dark and heavy and ominous. And how does the musical genius achieve this transition? A drumroll. Just one drumroll. That's it. And it works perfectly. In literally the space of two seconds, the entire tone of the song changes, and it is absolutely amazing. I literally grin like a maniac every single time I hear that - which, let me tell you, is often.
Now that you have written proof of what a dork I am, and I have rambled for quite some time about it, I shall stop and ask you what things you are irrationally excited about.
DFTBA
(ETA: Blogger, you're mean. Why can't I post an exclamation point in my title?!?)
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