(no subject)

Now I kind of feel bad about being so snarky about the Judith Tarr book. It wasn't bad by any means, it was just the bad parts were so distracting from the good parts that it was very frustrating.

yhlee's got some interesting thoughts on nationality/ethnicity (I can't think of the right descriptive) and writing.

As a reader, I like having sci-fi/fantasy that has different cultural influences. But I also get rather irked when it goes wrong, when it feels like the author has only sort of paid lip service to research or something and ends up perpetuating stereotypics instead of offering an interesting look at the culture. It's a fine line to walk; plus, I'm probably a more touchy reader than most. And I have to remember that something that doesn't feel "Asian" or "Chinese" to me might just be me, because it's not as though I've grown up being entirely Asian or Chinese or whatnot.

Then there's the fun flip side -- I remember reading a Time Magazine article in twelfth grade, in which the author suggested that maybe the multi-colored hair and big eyes of anime characters indicates some sublimated Japanese desire to be Caucasian. I don't really buy into that, but it's interesting, and it made me think. I guess for anime it's hard to tell sometimes -- the guy who basically invented anime and manga in their modern form was highly influenced by Disney. Plus, there are all the pseudo-European fantasy landscapes in so much anime and manga, particularly shoujo.

I think this is why I get a bit huffy sometimes at America-the-conceptual-entity (which I think is different from America-the-political-state or America-which-contains-lots-of-different-people). Obviously, no one in America is forcing other countries to adopt bits of American culture, and of course, globalization, etc. and America itself definitely has lots of other cultures influencing it as well. It's just that sometimes it seems so prevalent that one comment on the superiority of America (which would annoy me anyway) just sets me off. I used to argue with my friends a lot about this in college -- I think I've cooled down about it, but it's still a niggly little annoying thing.

Hrm, now wondering if I have said too much -- I am a total wuss about confrontation and argumentation.

Randomness

Did an informational interview today. Nervousness.

Instead of being productive on the day off and going to search for suits (ARGH), I instead took a nap, finished Caroline Stevermer's A College of Magics and was tempted to promptly reread it.

My head hurts. It has been like this for a while -- not a normal, Advil-curable headache, but eyestrain or something. I'm wondering if I spend waaaay too much time staring at a computer screen (quite likely), reading (quite likely as well), or if I just need to get a new prescription. Sigh. I do wish glasses weren't so expensive.

My eyesight is so bad that when I take off my glasses, I can't read the computer screen, which is currently about an arm's length away. I've had glasses since maybe second grade. Got contacts in tenth grade, had eye surgery, after which contacts hurt like mad and I promptly discarded them. So I have my nifty blue geek glasses. I think about laser eye surgery every once in a while, because I remember how exhilirating it was to have contacts, to not have the weight of glasses on my nose and to not have everything in my peripheral vision be fuzzy. I remember feeling like I could count every single leaf on all the trees, and how wonderful that was.

Kill Bill Vol. 1 has still not arrived from Netflix (poor boy, who desperately wants to see it). The Powerpuff Girls Movie, on the other hand, has ^_^. The universe truly hates the boy.

I am very tempted to watch Lilo and Stitch again, particularly the opening segment with the Hawaiian music and Lilo swimming and hula dancers.

Angel 4x19 Time Bomb

( Spoilers for ep and promo )