July 22, 2012

As for this midsummer lull


Well, it's officially midsummer and I find myself (again) in the lull of routine. The weather is nice, I feel good, work isn't so bad, yoga is invigorating, the books are compelling. Of course I would rather be involved or stressing about something concrete because I'm crazy but I suppose I will have double the normal dose of all that in the upcoming school year. So I guess I should just listen to common sense and appreciate this already! Right? Ok. 

Of course, as is the case whenever I have nothing to do and spend extended periods of time in solitude, I have just been experiencing and discovering things I like. All year I’ve been hearing great things and reading great reviews and analyses of Lena Dunham’s Girls. Obviously, as the kind of person who likes things such as this (i.e. Rookie), I could not wait to get my eyes on it. I had seen her film, Tiny Furniture earlier this year and re-watched it recently with my mother in preparation. It's honest, it's raw, and what I like best about Dunham's writing is that it so clearly portrays relationships between young women and their friends, their partners, and themselves. I find that even though most of her characters are post-graduate and her writing is semi-autobiographical, the way these women approach life is so relatable, inspiring, and realistic. I highly recommend it to any women reading this (and I guess the guys too, if you're thick-skinned enough). Be warned, none of her material is 'safe for work' and nearly all of it has the potential to make you uncomfortable. Needless to say, I watched the entirety of the first season of Girls in 3 days. The four main female characters are nuanced portrayals of typical post-grad and female stereotypes. I loved it and can't wait for more. P.S. The soundtrack is impeccable. 

I've also been reading so much ever since summer began. I find that this is the time where I have the opportunity to get some of the big literary hits under my belt - members of the canon who I somehow never got around to in high school. My to-read and have-read book lists are up on Goodreads


Once August comes around, I'm going to start reading The Iliad for school and studying French for placement tests. It's starting to become a little more real for me, the fact that I'm going to college and Columbia in just one month. I keep looking up photos of the campus and profiles of students, imagining the many different possible incarnations of myself that could come to pass in the following four years. I look at photos of the reading rooms inside Butler Library and picture myself toiling away in them, I imagine myself on the subway to an internship, meeting friends downtown, somehow existing in this city where something monumental happens to some extent every day. Being in the thick of it. It seems surreal. 



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