Some things to excite the mind.

This is hands down the BEST SCREENPLAY of the year: "Now in order to remember I am looking for those you can never forget"..."When the morning light appears, you see the destruction you've caused without even knowing where you are."

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I am absolutely overwhelmed. There's only one negative: I wish I could sit back and absorb all the material and especially my last week or so in Manhattan before I get on a plane for the fifth time in two weeks. (I want to see "theanyspacewhatever" exhibit at the Guggenheim it runs until Jan 7 and is their "most experimental exception yet"). Friday I'm boarding again for Basel... my first time, too. I have my third interview today. Yesterday was Town&Country (which I admit, I patted myself on the back & jumped in the air for getting). The week before that I interviewed with an event planning/celebrity and product branding company (not the best experience, I realized how difficult it is to pretend to be passionate about a subject I have been theorizing against for the last year and a half...the interview only motivated me to go hiding in Strand and buy three more books, all the while hoping one day someone may find me shelved...from there I overheard two marvelous conversations in the vicinity of NYU:

#1 one female to another female - "I know...I can't believe our situation...well we'll just have to marry a man with a trust fund." 

I turned around, glaring, shocked but yet, not shocked at all. They sounded serious...but let's say hypothetically they were not serious...how could they still say this ALOUD??? And whilst waiting for their lattes? With my redeye in hand, I walked on to class, only to hear in the hallway...

#2 a male speaking to a group - "Yeah, my roommate is gay. I make fun of him everyday." 

I ALMOST CHOKED... and yet I am the one dismissed at interviews for saying we should consider morales in the media, since the media influences the masses. These two conversations only reminded me of my own prior to entering the interview:

ME: I've grown cynical as a result of my sincerity.

TWIN: Sincerity is the new sarcasm.

In three and half hours I need to have more things squared away with applications. Be able to give a professor recommendation requests, have my internship application ready for Marie Claire and be there by 4pm. With that said, Marie Claire has become my new favourite magazine. I read it for the first time last night and was shocked by my want to read it straight through. Finally a magazine that concentrates on empowering women not by way of the exterior life (make up, face lifts, sex tips, celebrity idealism, or even profiles on fashion designers) but on the outside life (aka things one is "othered" to) and how it can be brought within to cause an interior change. It also, no lie, did make me want to shop for the first time ever. There are many articles and the like I want to pass on, but for starters:

Generation of users who use "Smart Pills"

There is so many things I can say about this. I do believe, though I am continually being proven wrong, that we do share the same hope: to be good, to be sober, to be innocent and not dependent. With that said, we are seduced into pills because we let them exist in a category separate to "drugs" (cocaine...). However, is there a difference? Are we being naive? Are we denying ourselves? Are we becoming dependent because we our a generation that wants to do it all, but struggle to ever do so or be satisfied with what we have done? I met someone Saturday night, and he told me that after becoming a consistent "user" of Adderall, it prevents you from being creative. About four months prior, another male told me that it would make me angry, that it tightens your jaw and would make me an asshole. Although I always find it timely and telling that these articles appear, I can't help but also think that the writer and distributer are encouraging the behavior or at the very least raising an eyebrow to the very subject they are supposed to be resisting/opposing. For example, I had never heard of Provigil and now I don't think I'll forget it either. There was no shattering reason given why one should not take these pills, except for the journalist's own experience (that of a stomach ache) and if one can risk that then isn't it just as easy to "give it a go" as well? I'm not sure there is a solution. I hate the quote "ignorance is bliss" but perhaps it is best applied here.

Voluntary Madness by Norah Vincent REVIEW

A step beyond Cyndy Sherman? Not only posing for a still frame, but entering the outside life and acting the role within the moving culture. This may very well be where journalism eventually goes...the only accurate way to get insider scoop per se is to become what one seeks to expose. Though it may be hard to believe, I have always thought deep down that was why I finally lost the weight that I did...to be as intimate as I could possibly be with the mentality one who starves takes on.  

Psychology of Women Quarterly

On Thanksgiving I really "talked it out" with my aunt. I don't see her often, but this time I felt like I could - if need be - defend myself. It went beyond that though and I gained extraordinary insight into psychology and possible career choices. She recommended this journal and the first link I chose took me to an article that was of an immediate interest. I have always been open about my disorder...a disorder that I know was less of an eating disorder (that lasted for less than a year) but an image disorder (which may effect me my whole life). I would love to work with adolescents on this topic. 

...More of more...later.