Well, that was surreal...
Jun. 9th, 2008 11:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccastareyesJust spoke to two people from Cornell Housing (I think...). Apparently they were looking for a grad student who had been sleeping in the stairwell that leads to the roof, and wanted to speak to him and make sure he had somewhere to live and was generally okay. Since one of my officemates keeps weird hours (read: there was a time I had stayed around here until 2 AM playing Axis and Allies, and he was still in the office working when I left), they wanted to make sure it wasn't him.
My weekend was fine -- I went to a baby shower on Saturday and was thoroughly bored. Seriously, making twenty women, some of whom were elderly and one who was very pregnant, sit around in 90° heat was not well-planned. It helped that the house had a pool and a little garden waterfall and was by the Hudson. And that we all went in to eat -- the presents were outside, though, so Jenna, the mom-to-be, had to open them there. Seriously, my cousin Dylan (the dad-to-be) was wondering where he was going to put all the stuff. We also got the fun of my cousin Martha (the aunt-to-be) and I being two academics (Martha is a university librarian) uncertain about how to talk to Jenna's working-class friends. Didn't help that they were mostly talking about gossip about mutual friends. We ended up talking mostly to Maryjean (Martha's mom) and her two friends.
I had driven down with Martha and Pat (her husband), and they drove me back to Binghamton, but it was too late to catch the bus back to Ithaca, so I ended up spending the night. We ate the world's smallest 'large' pizza -- thankfully Martha and I had a late lunch at the shower and Pat had visited his grandmother who had seen it as her mission to make sure he was fed -- and watched Avatar: the Last Airbender. Yes, my cousin is five years older than I am, has two master's degrees, and has no kids. Neither she nor Pat is in fandom (to my knowledge) -- Pat's into filmaking, and is going back to school for his MFA. And, yes, Avatar is a cartoon, with a target audience of the tween set. So, what's your point?
(For the record, they appreciate the characters and the awesome and creative fight scenes*, and Martha commented how she appreciated that it was a very exciting, action-driven series that didn't come across as gratuitously violent. I commented that part of that was the target audience, but that it didn't feel forced or like the directors were 'talking down' to the target audience. (That the protagonists were fighting to incapacitate, not injure or kill made sense, and that the bending played into that.))
* We watched 'Appa's Lost Days' and 'Lake Laogai' in the evening, and 'The Earth King' and 'The Guru' the next day. Pat was convinced that the storming the palace of the Earth King sequence was one of the best sequences ever in the show. I suppose a would-be filmmaker can really appreciate all of the elements that go on in putting together a sequence like that. He also liked the fight in Lake Laogai, with Jet, Smellerbee and Longshot. Frankly, I can't wait until they get to the 'Day of Black Sun' episodes, since those also have a pretty darn cool action sequence.
Well, back to work. These papers won't read themselves.
My weekend was fine -- I went to a baby shower on Saturday and was thoroughly bored. Seriously, making twenty women, some of whom were elderly and one who was very pregnant, sit around in 90° heat was not well-planned. It helped that the house had a pool and a little garden waterfall and was by the Hudson. And that we all went in to eat -- the presents were outside, though, so Jenna, the mom-to-be, had to open them there. Seriously, my cousin Dylan (the dad-to-be) was wondering where he was going to put all the stuff. We also got the fun of my cousin Martha (the aunt-to-be) and I being two academics (Martha is a university librarian) uncertain about how to talk to Jenna's working-class friends. Didn't help that they were mostly talking about gossip about mutual friends. We ended up talking mostly to Maryjean (Martha's mom) and her two friends.
I had driven down with Martha and Pat (her husband), and they drove me back to Binghamton, but it was too late to catch the bus back to Ithaca, so I ended up spending the night. We ate the world's smallest 'large' pizza -- thankfully Martha and I had a late lunch at the shower and Pat had visited his grandmother who had seen it as her mission to make sure he was fed -- and watched Avatar: the Last Airbender. Yes, my cousin is five years older than I am, has two master's degrees, and has no kids. Neither she nor Pat is in fandom (to my knowledge) -- Pat's into filmaking, and is going back to school for his MFA. And, yes, Avatar is a cartoon, with a target audience of the tween set. So, what's your point?
(For the record, they appreciate the characters and the awesome and creative fight scenes*, and Martha commented how she appreciated that it was a very exciting, action-driven series that didn't come across as gratuitously violent. I commented that part of that was the target audience, but that it didn't feel forced or like the directors were 'talking down' to the target audience. (That the protagonists were fighting to incapacitate, not injure or kill made sense, and that the bending played into that.))
* We watched 'Appa's Lost Days' and 'Lake Laogai' in the evening, and 'The Earth King' and 'The Guru' the next day. Pat was convinced that the storming the palace of the Earth King sequence was one of the best sequences ever in the show. I suppose a would-be filmmaker can really appreciate all of the elements that go on in putting together a sequence like that. He also liked the fight in Lake Laogai, with Jet, Smellerbee and Longshot. Frankly, I can't wait until they get to the 'Day of Black Sun' episodes, since those also have a pretty darn cool action sequence.
Well, back to work. These papers won't read themselves.
