It's a wrap - school and videos and random crap

School's done. No more exams, no more fretting over labs to do, no more freaking out over projects. Wow. Maybe done forever, if I don't manage to get into any grad schools. Or I find a sugardaddy [crossfingers]. Checked my grades this morning and I saw I got a C in Brain Damage. Eh, at least I didn't fail. But it's not going to help my cause at all.

I wish I knew some people into the club scene. Jo's such a stick in the mud. I know she wouldn't mind going to hip-hop clubs but I've been listening to my techno/dance mp3's almost non-stop lately. It's gotten to the point where I can actually tap to the beat as soon as Disconnected Child starts playing, instead of waiting to catch it once the guitar kicks in (that makes no sense, but whatever, trust me). Queer as Folk with its gay "thump thump thump". Ha! Such a bad influence. Hopefully during this summer I can find some people up here up for straight-up dance clubs. Hip-hop alone gets sort of tedious.

I need to start moving into the apartment. Luckily I don't start work until Thursday, so I have a few days to veg/plan for the future/watch movies.

Speaking of which, I caught a few between yesterday and today. One was My Own Private Idaho, with River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves. I'd heard so much about this movie that I thought it might be worth my while. It came off as so much pretentious film-school grad crap it wasn't even funny. No, let me retract that. The photography and cinematography weren't pretentious. Neither was the plot. The dialogue was. Some parts played like updated Shakespearean works. Ugh. I can't even describe it. I watched large portions of the movie on mute with the closed caption on. Two things I discovered during the viewing: River Phoenix was an amazing actor. Simply amazing. Riveting and subtle. It's a shame drugs had to take him from us. The second: Keanu Reeves doesn't suck. He's not great, but he doesn't suck. He just has the misfortune of being cast with people that blow him out of the water (River Phoenix, Laurence Fishburne, etc.). His "surfer boy" accent really does him a disservice, especially when you're trying to take him seriously.

Another was Goodfellas. Eh, it wasn't bad. I thought it tons better than Idaho, even though I didn't get attached to any of the characters in it like I empathized with River Phoenix' (what the hell is the possessive of "Phoenix" anyway??) character. Ray Liotta has dazzling eyes, I'll give him that much. And no, I've not regressed to a simpering schoolgirl. They were just hard to miss.

The Truth About Cats and Dogs, hands down my favorite romantic comedy. Definitely one of my favorite movies of all time. It's so ...simple. Three main characters and a story that hits me entirely too close to the heart (and head). Besides it has Janeane in it. You can't go wrong with that.

Okay, it's time for me to frolick. Carry on, world.

Screw you, Jung!

Just woke up from a weird dream where my mother (of course it would be her) called me on my shit: "You're too lazy, and so you settle for things instead of [trying something else]!" she said in that most bile-rising voice of hers as I unpacked the car in front of the house. Seriously, when she speaks to me like that I don't know whether to cower in a corner and cry or smack her.
I'm well aware that Jung would cackle with glee at hearing about that dream, pointing out that, hells yeah, dreams are manifestations of the subconscious because haven't I been thinking that same thing for, what? the last 3 months? I have no time for long dead disciples of Freud, however; that the messenger was my mother made it no easier to stomach.

That should be my motivation for change - avoiding that nagging voice. I need to get resumes together and start moving into that damned apartment. Maybe that'll silence the voices in my head.

It starts... *grin*

News like this makes me smile, laugh, and feel some genuine happiness. You go, girl!

[pilfered from Excite OddNews]

India Fetes Bride Who Said 'No' to Dowry Demands
May 15, 9:58 am ET

By Penny MacRae

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India has a new heroine -- a gutsy bride who said "no" to the dowry demands of her fiance and called off their wedding hours before the ceremony.

Nisha Sharma was supposed to marry last weekend. The Hindu priest and 2,000 guests had assembled for the lavish festivities when she called police and demanded they arrest the groom who spent what should have been his wedding night in jail.

"He wanted material things -- not me," Sharma, a 21-year-old software engineering student, told Reuters, her hands and feet still painted with intricate henna designs, the traditional hallmark of an Indian bride.

Police booked the groom under the country's anti-dowry act -- passed more than four decades ago to combat the ancient practice in which a groom's family demands cash, consumer goods and gold as part of a marriage settlement -- but which is still widely flouted.

The family of the groom declined comment.

In a sign social attitudes may be changing, Sharma has become a celebrity for defying the age-old dowry tradition.

Her face has been splashed across newspapers and she has been flooded with proposals from men who say they would be honored to marry her without a dowry.

"BRAVO"

A big Hindi daily, the Rashtriya Sahara, said in a salute: "Bravo: We're proud of you."

"My message to all girls is if they ask for dowry, don't give it and don't marry the man," she said in her living room surrounded by air conditioners, TV sets and other goods her family said had been demanded by her future in-laws.

"I want all girls to get inspiration from me saying 'no'."

New Delhi women's activist Rupa Chatterjee said Sharma had been very courageous.

"Until girls and parents take a stand like Nisha, people will not be scared and will flout the law," she said

The government has tried to crack down on the dowry system but it still flourishes. Some families abort female fetuses or kill girls at birth fearing crippling dowry costs and sociologists say rising consumerism has made grooms' families greedier than in the past.

Some wives are even killed by their in-laws in dowry rows. Many die in infamous "stove burnings" in which in-laws set them ablaze and then claim it was a kitchen accident.

Sharma met the groom, a computer teacher, in March through a newspaper matrimonial ad, a common way for Indians to find partners under the system of arranged marriages. She said just before the wedding his family started making demands.

"I was surprised. The first day we met he said, 'we don't want anything'," she said.

The final straw came when her brother called her as she was getting ready to go to the wedding ceremony to say the groom's family and friends were insulting her businessman father and demanding 1.2 million rupees ($25,380).