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Name: Sarah
Country: Korea, South
Gender: Female
Interests: Acting, chess, religion, philosophy, sewing, horseback riding, dancing (salsa, hip-hop, bellydancing), writing stories, singing, playing v-ball, playing the piano, swimming, art (or any craft for that matter), chillin with my friends, listening to music.
Expertise: Waiting until the last minute to do my chem problem sets, eating chocolate, the art of hitting the snooze button on my alarm, having late-night conversations, laughing, shining shoes, zoning out
Occupation: Student
Message: message me
Member Since:
3/30/2003
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| Every now and then I'll go through a phase where I notice a particular actor, become mildly obsessed with the actor, and will proceed to watch just about every movie featuring the actor that I can get my hands on. These episodes are transient only in the sense that my zeal will last for only so long, and then my interest sort of goes dormant for a while until I relapse. But it never really goes away completely.
Here's a list:
- Robert Powell (probably the most severe case and one that culminated in a website that, despite the embarrassing schoolgirl adulation plastered all over the webpage, I can't bring myself to take it down)
- Gary Oldman
- John Malkovich
- Willem Dafoe
- Alan Rickman
- Mark Hamill
I think it's safe to say that my choice of actors had little to do with physical attractiveness (with the exception of Mark Hamill, whom I am in love with simply because he is Luke Skywalker). Some of them hold a particular gravity on the screen (Alan Rickman), and others I admire for their ridiculously versatile acting (Gary Oldman is my acting god).
When I was seventeen, I noticed Crispin Glover as the Creepy Thin Man in "Charlie's Angels." He was delightfully weird with his Spock eyebrows and complete lack of lines--and let's not forget that high-pitched scream! I looked up his credits on imdb and found that the only film available at the video rental in which he had a leading role was "Willard". I rented it, but for some reason didn't appreciate "Willard" nearly as much as I do now. That phase ended fairly quickly, and I didn't watch any more of Mr. Glover's films until recently.
Last year I opened a NetFlix account and started sifting through titles by actor. I don't remember why Crispin Glover's name popped into my head, but I ended up watching a few YouTube clips of the Creepy Thin Man and pretty much relapsed. I watched "Willard" again, then "River's Edge" and "Fast Sofa", and Crispin Glover became my new actor obsession.
Fortunately, he's become a lot more active in the bigger Hollywood productions (though he was known best for his role as George McFly in "Back to the Future" back in the day); he was the voice of Grendel in Beawulf, and he's the Knave of Hearts in Tim Burton's new "Alice in Wonderland". Turns out that he'd also been touring with his own film projects as well, but I paid little attention since I doubted that he would be coming to Northern Cali anytime soon.
Last month I was doing a little catching up with Mr. Glover's films and noticed that someone had posted his tour dates on a message board. Lo and behold, he was going to be in Grandview on Nov 22. Seats were $20.
You can bet I was all over that.
Before I go on, I must say: Crispin Glover has done a ridiculously good job of coming across as eccentric. Genuinely eccentric. Look up "David Letterman and Crispin Glover" on YouTube to see him almost karate kick Letterman in the head during his guest appearance. But that's why I find him so fascinating.
His tour consisted of readings from his book, a screening of his film, and a question and answer session. The books were a series of obscure titles in which he had basically cut and pasted sentences and pictures, written his own words in, and produced a series of passages that make absolutely no sense whatsoever. His films are no more conventional; nearly the entire cast has Down Syndrome, and the lead actor (if you can really call the role a leading one) has a severe case of cerebral palsy. There is plenty of taboo subject matter thrown in there with the intent of making you squirm.
So, I didn't know quite what to expect when I got to the theater. But I got a center seat in the second row, and when Crispin Glover walked out on stage the first thing I noticed was that he was no less attractive in person than he was on camera. He is an alarmingly beautiful man. He did a few readings from his book, accompanied by a slideshow, and then thanked us for coming before walking back stage while the movie "It is Fine, Everything is Fine" was to start.
But it didn't really start--at least, not for an hour or so. Something was wrong with the projector wheel, and eventually Mr. Glover ran back onstage to say that he had a digital copy of the first film in his trilogy "What is It?" on his computer, and that we would be watching that instead. He then proceeded to hook his computer up to the projector, and I'll tell you, seeing Crispin Glover's desktop displayed on the screen was a little bizarre. He has a mac, by the way.
While he was messing with the display, the owner of the theater apologized for the delay and announced that concessions were free. I was starving, so I ran to the lobby for some popcorn.
While I was waiting, I heard someone say behind me, "The movie is starting now." Of course I turn around, and Crispin Glover is looking right at me. Lest I give the impression that I was more interested in popcorn than I was in his film, I followed him into the theater, where he stood for a second in the aisle to make sure that the picture was good. Then he walked back toward the door, and as I held the door open for him I was thinking, "I HELD THE DOOR OPEN FOR CRISPIN GLOVER!!"
The movie wasn't any more or less weird than I expected it to be, so there were no surprises. After the movie was over, Mr. Glover came to the front to ask if there were any questions. I had seen interviews with him before, but I was reminded once again: Crispin Glover is remarkably articulate, and there was no hint of eccentric while he talked. He spoke for quite a bit about his vision for the film, and how he was trying to make a statement against corporate filmmaking and the barriers they set up for creative expression, and why he chose actors with Down Syndrome. I got to ask my question, so by the time the Q&A session was over I was as happy as a clam.
The best part was to come, and that was actually getting the chance to shake his hand and talk to him for a few minutes about his films. By then, it was one o'clock in the morning, but he still took the time to ask ME questions and to carry on a conversation, even though he must have been exhausted. I told him how much I respected his work, and he smiled and said, "Thank you, I really appreciate that." He shook my hand, thanked me for coming, and I just about floated out of the door.
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| Update on today's post:
So I emailed the dean to let her know that I had canceled my appointment after speaking with my anatomy professor and apologizing if I had been intrusive; she wrote back saying that she had been "a bit tense" about a meeting she had that day. She also asked me to come back in to discuss a way to organize a group of med2 students who could serve as mentors for the med1 students next year.
A bit confused, but yay for happy endings...
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| When in a position of not-much-authority and attempting to get something done effectively from the bottom up--and when lack of insistence may result in lack of progress--I find that it is difficult to toe the line between being effectively persistent and being obnoxiously brazen.
"Brazenness" (yes, that's a word) implies "acting out of one's rightful place." What behooves us to restrain ourselves from acting "out of place"? Is such action inherently offensive? Well, I suppose nothing is "inherently" offensive...but do enough people get offended when others "act out of place" that it is reasonable to expect others to refrain from doing so? Is that even a legitimate criteria? (If enough people are irritated that I wear purple socks, does that mean I should stop wearing purple socks?) Or is it more along the lines of tacky, or lacking in decorum?
And while we're at it, I'm intrigued with this idea of "rightful place." Naturally it implies a hierarchy; in most cases, social or work hierarchy. What intrigues me is this idea of having a "rightful place" outside of an explicitly structured hierarchy (the workplace). In this setting, does acting out of place threaten something? Or am I just completely missing the point?
Exposition:
In case it wasn't reflected in my posts, I really liked anatomy. The material was enthralling, and I thrived on the learning atmosphere and the attention that the faculty gave their students. (Yes, I love it when my teachers pay attention to me. I am an insufferable teacher's pet. It makes learning easier.)
It is the policy here not to allow students that aren't in an alternative program (it's called the independent study program, or ISP; it's basically curriculum minus the lecture, where you learn everything on your own) to return as teaching assistants the following year for anatomy. I really, really, REALLY wanted to come back as a TA. I also refused to enroll in ISP. But the more I thought about it, the more I figured that asking around about the possibility of being a TA couldn't hurt.
So I asked. I emailed one of my anatomy professors (who is also the leader for the anatomy block), asked him about a good time to stop in, and spoke with him the next day about my interest. He was surprisingly receptive to the idea of having more student involvement in teaching, and I left his office feeling encouraged and enthusiastic about my prospects. He suggested that I email the academic program director and the associate dean of student life to get the ball rolling, and asked me to check back in with him about my progress.
So I did. I emailed, telling both of them about my idea and asking if there was a good time for me to swing by their respective offices. I waited about a week and a half, and heard nothing back. Our academic program director happens to be one of our professors, so after lecture one day I introduced myself and mentioned that I had sent the email. I could tell by the look on his face that he remembered, but the look on his face wasn't particularly encouraging. I laughed and told him so, and he admitted (good-naturedly) that he had received my email, but that it was not in his place to act on my behalf. He then suggested that I go speak with the associate dean of student life.
So I did. Since I had asked about a good time to swing by and hadn't heard back, I figured it wouldn't hurt to go by the office to see if I could introduce myself.
When I arrived, the dean's door was open, and she was on her computer. I knocked (on the open door) and said immediately, "Is this a bad time?" The dean said that she was trying to get some things together, and told me that I should have made an appointment. I apologized and introduced myself, clarified that I had sent her the email earlier, and told her that I had wanted to swing by to ask if there was a good time that I could meet with her. She told me (referring to my email), "I wasn't sure exactly what you wanted. You're welcome to volunteer, but I don't think I can do anything about it. I think its something between you and your instructor." She then reminded me that it wasn't something we could talk about by just "popping in", and that I should make an appointment.
The receptionist was out (the receptionist desk was literally about two feet away from the dean's door), so I waited for a while and chatted with my friend Rose, who was waiting for her appointment with someone else. I must have waited for about fifteen minutes, and the dean came back out and apologized that the receptionist was out for so long. I explained to the dean that I didn't need an appointment, and that if it wasn't something that she thought would be useful to discuss, I could leave; I just wasn't sure who I needed to speak to about my question. The dean said, "No, I can meet with you. Just not without an appointment."
The receptionist eventually came back, and I made my appointment, albeit feeling as though I wasn't really going to get anywhere. As a last ditch effort, I decided to run by my anatomy professor's office one more time.
After leaving the dean's office, I definitely felt in some way that I had been intrusive. But I couldn't pinpoint exactly how. Her tone seemed disapproving, and my immediate reaction was to wonder if I had overstepped a boundary in knocking on her door. My intent was to ask if there would be a good time to meet; of course, if she was busy, a referral to the receptionist made sense. But her repeated reminders that I SHOULD have made an appointment sort of implied that I shouldn't have knocked on the door in the first place. All of the staff and faculty contact information is listed on our website; I took this as a go-ahead to contact them if we had questions, even if it was, "is there a good time to meet?"
There is a happy ending, and I'm glad a went to my anatomy professor again. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have found out that his intent in having me run by the assistant dean and the program director was just to ensure that we wouldn't be stepping on any toes if he let me be a TA. Needless to say, there was a severe lack of communication going on, but all of this REALLY made me think: if knocking on the dean's door was being a little too insistent, going back to my professor was even more so. But it worked out. And I'm not quite sure what my take-home message from all of this should be.
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| What I have learned so far in my training at the Suicide Prevention Hotline: It is both a blessing and a curse that, ultimately, our greatest sense of comfort and happiness lies in our relationships with others.
I believe it pays off to cultivate yourself so that others feel joy when they are around you. It almost never hurts to give, but I cannot even bring myself to imagine the pain of those who have no one.
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| After my last anatomy exam, I had a conversation with Alex about how the exam went. (You may remember my mention of this rather fetching young fellow intermittently on my blog for the past four years...four years, ladies and gentlemen, hold your applause.) I had done fairly well, and when I told Alex my score he chided me (good-naturedly): “overachiever.” My attempt to give a light-hearted, nonchalant answer completely failed, and I proceeded to be silent for the next minute or so while I tried to figure out what exactly was bothering me. I have been called an “overachiever” in my life more times than I can count. I honestly can’t remember how often the term has been lobbed at me in jest; what I can say is that sometimes it has bothered me, and other times it hasn’t. Regardless of the times I have been able to shrug it off or laugh about it, I have to admit that the term “overachiever” has a bit of a sting to it. It is certainly not a compliment. The word “over-” implies “excess,” “unnecessary,” and “superfluous.” It is a hand-wave to a silly and compulsive tendency. The overachievers are the ones who work themselves into a tizzy (for no seemingly valid reason) while the sane and reasonable ones –the ones who know how to prioritize—sit back and grin at them in knowing amusement. The first time I can remember being bothered by the name was when it was applied to me—rather matter-of-factly, now that I think of it—by a guy that I was pretty head-over-heels for in high school. I don’t quite remember the course of the conversation that led up to it (this was my freshman year), but I do remember that it was a response to his own performance in light of my own. I was a straight-A student, he was not. Of course, there was no reason for this to reflect poorly on his work ethic, because my grades were the product of a character trait that was very easily dismissed. Overachiever. To wrap up the Alex story (and in his defense before I move on to my diatribe), I admit that I harbor a bit of a chip on my shoulder from those in high school who treated my studying tendencies as something exasperating or undesirable, somewhat akin to an utter lack of fashion style or social ineptitude (i.e. my volleyball coach rolling his eyes at me while I was trying to do my homework on a Friday afternoon, sighing, “Put it away, Sarah.”) Alex was teasing (as I hear significant others are occasionally prone to do), but I bristled nonetheless. Segue to apologetics. For us “overachievers”...what exactly sets this “bar of sufficiency” that we overshoot to become not “achievers,” but “overachievers”? Is it the average performance of our peers? The minimum required to achieve our personal goals? The world would be a pretty dismal place if everyone strove to vacate the high end of the bell curve; we’d be saying goodbye to scientific breakthroughs, philosophical treatises, social revolutions. And when it comes to personal goals, I am almost certain that I would not be where I am right now if I hadn’t worked as hard as I did in high school and college. Apparently my work efforts were just right, and I am exactly where I want to be. It is a shame that there is any stigma attached to a strong work ethic in itself. I make the "in itself" qualification because I am very much aware that tunnel-vision and selfish ambition—occasional by-products of a strong drive to succeed—can have some negative consequences. I recognize that at times, my desire to do well in academics cultivated behaviors that stifled my social life, damaged my emotional and physical health, and strained some relationships. I’m working on that. But let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Please, please, please recognize my accomplishments for what they are. Accomplishments come when you work for them. And work is hard. Everyone derives a sense of satisfaction from something. I work hard for two reasons: first, I am often truly engaged in what I am learning, and second, I choose to derive satisfaction from my accomplishments. I fail to see how this is any worse than deriving satisfaction from a night on the town, or from one’s physical attractiveness, or from fancy cuisine. I think that it’s part of human nature to be proud of our creations and our abilities. I have the feeling that, if it weren’t, we wouldn’t have Beethoven’s symphonies, or Michelangelo’s sculptures. I’m going to make a bold assertion here, and that is that those who wave around the term “overachiever” in an attempt to be dismissive are those who refuse to acknowledge the value of working hard for the sake of working hard. I won’t delve any further than that, but I will say this: suppose my volleyball coach or my high-school crush were rushed into an emergency room for some fun emergency surgery and had the privilege of choosing their own physician. Given the choice between an overachiever and your average Joe, you can bet your balls that they’re going to choose the overachiever. | | |
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