teen romance for the new generation



remember when buffy the vampire slayer was THE show that was watched religiously by the young american populace every week back when the WB and UPN were still separate broadcasting stations? well now that vampiric phenomenon is back with the "Twilight" series, written by a Mormon housewife, Stephenie Meyer. sadly, i have not found the time (nor the motivation, nor the interest) to read this so-called saga, but i do have a fourteen year old sister who is a loyal fan of the books and eagerly waiting for the release of the fourth and final book this August. i haven't really taken notice to the books until i came across this op-ed yesterday on the new york times:

A Virginal Goth Girl

By GAIL COLLINS

"Every so often I discover that the whole world seems obsessed with a pop-culture phenomenon that I’ve missed out on completely. This would be O.K. if I’d been spending my time on more important matters, but unfortunately I’m not all that deep. I’m telling you all this because our topic for today is “The Twilight Saga,” a series of extraordinarily popular books that you may have never heard of, just the way I had never heard of “American Idol” until it was practically passé.

“Twilight” and its successor novels are about a girl who falls in love with a vampire. There seems to be a lot of this going on lately. If you want to become a best-selling novelist, I would definitely advise that you start by making your hero a little bit undead.

Even given this important thematic advantage, however, the Twilights are a phenomenon. According to a spokeswoman for the author, Stephenie Meyer, the first three books sold 6.5 million copies in the United States alone in less than three years. The fourth, “Breaking Dawn,” is scheduled to arrive in the stores on Aug. 2, when it will be greeted by midnight parties in at least 4,000 bookstores. In New York City, there will be a preparty concert of music that Meyer says inspires her writing. When the tickets went on sale, all 2,000 were gone within 45 minutes." read the rest of it here.

my favorite part?

" 'Only a vampire, ladies,' said Jessica Valenti, the author of “Full Frontal Feminism.” She worries that in the real world, young men are spending so much time watching pornography on the Internet that they will never be satisfied with normal women and normal relationships.

This sure sounds like trouble to me: A generation of guys who will settle for nothing less than a porn star meets a generation of women who expect their boyfriend to crawl through their bedroom window at night and just nuzzle gently until they fall asleep."

now i'm not completely cynical and i do believe in love, but i find it believable that teen romance books can shape a girl's view of love, and possibly distort it so that she'll never have realistic expectations. these girls probably are daydreaming about finding that perfect prince charming who has a dark (vampiric?) side, but is a complete gentleman and will not let his hormones get in the way of true love blah blah blah, etc. and why wouldn't they? the media does it often enough through teen romance tv shows and movies, so why not books? while buffy had her love-life as side plots, even she didn't offer to give up her mortal identity and become a soulless vampire for another man. i'll admit that i had my daydreams about prince charming, but it certainly didn't involve vampires nuzzling me in my sleep.



jessica@ 11:47 PM GMT link| 5 Comments | {Karma: 16 (+/-)}

summer baking




surprisingly, my job has consumed much of my summer, though that isn't very surprising, is it? i keep forgetting that there are only 24 hours in a day, and if 10 hours are reserved for work (and transportation) and about 7 for sleeping, the remaining 7 hours are spent frivolously. sometimes i go to the gym, other times i have dinners with friends and family. i haven't been "accomplishing" all the things i want, but frankly i don't care. it's my last real summer left and i'd like to enjoy it as much as i can. i've been reading a lot, not studying enough, not researching much, but at least i've been going to most of san francisco's traditional summer events, such as the outdoor movies, the annual fillmore jazz festival this past weekend, and the upcoming annual northbeach jazz festival. i've been missing out on these events the last couple of years because i haven't been in the city, but i'm glad i've had the opportunity to see them this year like i used to during my childhood.

i've also been baking more often, at least once a week. my latest creations: delicious raspberry shortbread cookies, and probably one of my all time favorite cookies...next to plain sugar cookies and snickerdoodles. i have not made my usual peach cobbler, but that will be coming shortly!



jessica@ 10:53 AM GMT link| 2 Comments | {Karma: 5 (+/-)}

wordpress fail?

mood: ingrid michaelson - the way i am


so i tried to switch over to wordpress a couple weeks ago and failed only because i wasn't able to import all my greymatter files. (and god forbid i abandon all my lovely blog entries from athens/turkey/EUROPE.) i then abandoned this blog completely again because i was so fed up with the error messages from wordpress regarding greymatter. i'm thinking of just asking wordpress to do it for me and then i can just switch over completely, launch a new layout and perhaps reorganize everything so that my layout will be semi-permanent. that's a new project for this summer.

this past weekend was beautiful, despite the heavy fog that hovered over us on sunday. alice summerthing was a nice surprise, given that i didn't look up the bands beforehand. lifehouse was headlining, but ingrid michaelson and the last goodnight were there as well. i don't think i've ever seen such a huge turnout, but then again, i haven't been to summerthing for the last couple of years. sf symphony is performing this sunday and i haven't seen them since last year, so that should be good. maybe i'll be lucky and i'll see them perform again in august.

i'm hoping to fill this summer with some more concerts, especially the free ones at stern grove. i haven't been to one of those in ages and granted i usually don't like all the bands, i always enjoy live music.




jessica@ 02:54 PM GMT link| 6 Comments | {Karma: -5 (+/-)}

a news article share



it's summer, i'm home, and here's some fabulous advice for those of you who plan to attend the 2008 Olympics in the heavily-polluted, very hot but not too humid Beijing this summer:

China Lists Do’s and Don’ts for Olympics-Bound Foreigners

By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: June 3, 2008


HONG KONG — Do not bring any printed materials critical of China. Do not plan on holding any rallies or demonstrations in China. Do not think that you are guaranteed an entry visa even if you hold tickets to an Olympic event. And do not even think about smuggling opium into China. read more. . .





jessica@ 11:17 AM GMT link| 1 Comment | {Karma: 14 (+/-)}

almost the end (again)

music: Gwen Stefani - Sweet Escape


been inside all day not because it was rainy, but because i've been trying to flush out a research paper that i technically started researching for a few weeks ago and now i just need to magically have 15-20 pages written by Tuesday at 1pm. so far: page 9. success? hardly, unless i finish 2/3 by the end of the night.

classes end officially on Wednesday. i'm already done with one. so that means three classes left, no real in class finals, unless you count a Greek translation test which is basically like the midterm with 200 more lines of Antigone to review. po po.



jessica@ 09:07 PM GMT link| 558 Comments | {Karma: 4 (+/-)}

music revival



i go through music phases frequently, but it's usually a recycling of the same genres. this isn't to say that i don't explore and venture out into the ever-growing world of MySpace punk rock bands or ridiculous trance DJ remixes, but somehow, i find it more rewarding to rediscover old bands and to discover new bands through the same genres that i've been plugged into for years. lately i've been relying on Pandora for suggestions because i haven't found the time to explore Pure Volume or read up on band profiles and biographies. i always wonder what happens to most of the bands i listened to and "discovered" before their first album came out. i can't help but feel that the success of their career would reflect the quality of my music taste as well.

i'm thinking about dropping this domain after having owned it for almost a decade now. i want to "reinvent" myself, but now that my generation of bloggers is fading out to the new generation of networking profiles like MySpace and Facebook, i'm thinking of refocusing my energy to put together a good portfolio and start all over. perhaps that would be a nice addition to my list of summer projects like thinking of a creative project for the Watson or Fulbright and my senior honors thesis.



jessica@ 01:20 PM GMT link| 11 Comments | {Karma: 4 (+/-)}

spring break

mood: melancholy


two weeks of spring break zipped by and tomorrow i'm flying back to cold, cold maine. on the flip side, he is flying back with me and visiting me for a week, so that will mitigate the unhappiness of school. then again, i've been pretty content this semester so far, which is the first time ever at school.

today was terrible because i spent the afternoon re-writing 2/3 of my midterm paper (in chinese, mind you, or i wouldn't be complaining as much) because somehow i failed to save the finished draft, the one that i spent 2 whole days on. but a miracle happened this afternoon when i was able to flush out the rest of the paper in a few hours, literally 1/4 of the time i had spent on the original draft. this draft isn't that terrible too! i guess i just have a horrible tendency to procrastinate, especially when i don't want to do the work and i'm distracted by fun things like Puzzlebee on Facebook. the sad part is now i feel like i've wasted 2 days of my break on the original draft, so i'm kind of wallowing in my dissatisfaction right now. this is the first break i've spent not desperately absorbing every aspect of san francisco, but that's probably because i know i'm coming home this summer. the question is when, because i have yet to book my flight.



jessica@ 08:44 PM GMT link| 68 Comments | {Karma: 4 (+/-)}