Hello November, Hello NaNoWriMo!

A head's up for all you people hoping that I'll blog more frequently in November than I have in previous months. Don't count on it. National Novel Writing Month is going to eat my soul. That and zombies. But zombies to a far less degree.

NaNoWriMo has a daily word count goal of 1,667 words. If you can keep that up for a month, you'll hit 50,000 words on November 30th. Today I managed to crank out 7,132 words. That's more than my word count for all of November last year. I'm quite impressed with myself. Just being honest here.

Will I reach 50,000 words and win NaNo for the second time? Or will I burn out on day five and give up? We shall see!

NANOWRIMO IS COMING!

Abima Helps With NaNoWriMo, originally uploaded by rachel a. k..

October 27th? OCTOBER 27TH?!?!?! November 1st is right around the corner!! Am I ready for National Novel Writing Month?

Of course not!

(This makes it loads more fun.)

So with that in mind, if you're also doing NaNoWriMo, you can find me here to add me as a writing buddy.

On Nobel Peace Prizes and Daunting Expectations

Everyone remembers the scene where President Bush stood in front of a giant banner reading "Mission Accomplished" while declaring major combat operations in Iraq to be over. That was over six years ago. The war continues.

That image is what comes to mind when I think about the announcement I learned about early yesterday morning: President Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In a word? Premature.

Now you must know this. I wholeheartedly support the president. I campaigned for him. I went to the Democratic National Convention as an alternate Obama delegate. I voted for the man. I agree with his stance on health care and his stances on other issues. I want him to succeed both domestically and internationally.

But the Nobel Peace Prize? Now?

As a student of political science, I studied the Expectations Gap theory presented by Richard Waterman. In essence, the theory states that there is a gap between what the American public expects out of the president, and what the president can actually deliver. It seems to me that with this award, the expectations gap has grown. Not only is there a gap between the American public and the president, but there is now the potential for a gap between what the world expects, and what President Obama can deliver.

The award signifies the feeling amidst the international community that a president willing to engage in diplomacy before force is a welcome break from the "You're either with us or against us" mentality. And I agree that is a very good thing indeed. But it is not the end.

President Obama, for his part, took news of the award as a call to action, recognizing that he has much left to accomplish. I do hope that the award spurs on efforts toward a nuclear-free world. I do hope that the end is soon in sight for the wars we are currently engaged in. I even wish for peace in the Middle East.

But in awarding this hefty prize to the president now, I cannot help but wonder if there is any way for one man to live up to the astronomical expectations placed upon his shoulders.

Even so, I do wish him well.

Thirty Years

No. I'm not thirty. (Yet.)

Instead, thirty years ago today, my mom and dad exchanged vows and rings. They've been together ever since.

This is a feat worth celebrating. Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!

saradoxical: the delayed introduction.

saradoxical: i've been branded., originally uploaded by saradoxical.

Now that my headlights are working, I decided to go ahead and finish a project I'd had in mind for a while now. Namely, driving around town and looking ridiculous as I took photos of random illuminated signs. Who does that? Really?!

Oh. Wait. I do. And it was amazing! Despite the fact that my car still sounds like it might implode at any minute.

Anyway, I thought this would be an appropriate time to do an introductory type post, which I can later link from the side bar, so that random people stumbling across my blog from across the internet can see who it was who asked the question "Who is Jenny Beckman?" without providing an answer.

True Fact: That's the number one search query driving people here from the Mighty Google.

So. Let's begin already.

To understand me, you need to understand the word paradoxical which of course, takes its root from the word paradox.

par⋅a⋅dox [par-uh-doks]
–noun
1. a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth.
3. any person, thing, or situation exhibiting an apparently contradictory nature.

(Yes, I left out number two. And four, for the sake of full disclosure.)

While my entire life is hardly a paradox, there are a few things that stand out as being particularly paradoxical:

• I'm agnostic and/or an atheist, and captivated by religion.
• I'm in love with the open road (wanderlust is my favorite word) but I hardly ever travel.
• The non-stop action of big cities is attractive to me, but I also love living in what I consider to be the-middle-of-nowhere, and I've considered moving further away from civilization.
• I love dreaming but I never get enough sleep.
• I'm an idealistic cynic.

I may also list paradoxes in the same way that Alanis Morissette defines irony in that song of hers. It's 5:45 in the morning. I can't be expected to obey such things as definitions.

I truly believe that "we are the heroes of our own story." I would love to know who to attribute that quote to.

I also agree with Tolkien, that "not all those who wander are lost."

When I was in seventh grade, I nearly failed out of school, for a variety of reasons. One of the things that stands out to me from that semester in the gifted program was my English teacher frequently reciting the mantra, "Only boring people can be bored." Seventeen years later, I officially declare that to be bullshit.

Less clear in my mind are the group therapy sessions that they had us undertake as gifted students. I am pretty sure though, that I spent half a class period spinning around in a circle while describing my "monsters."

I do remember that my "monster" description was a rather accurate depiction of my seventh grade math teacher. This got everyone in my general vicinity laughing, and resulted in me being scolded for not taking the exercise seriously. Seriously?!

I quite enjoy listening to Simon & Garfunkel, Cat Stevens, R.E.M., Switchfoot, Joseph Arthur, Over the Rhine, Ben Folds and Green Day.

My freshman year in high school, just as Green Day was gaining popularity, I wondered if I would still listen to the band in ten years. It's been fifteen years now, and yes, I still do.

Despite the best instructional efforts given by many patient friends, I still cannot properly eat a meal with chopsticks.

My favorite movie of all-time is about a twenty year old boy who falls in love with a seventy-nine year old woman. Harold and Maude is truly a cinematic classic.

I want to make at least one long distance train trip and one long distance bus trip at some point in my life. I still haven't given up on my goal of hiking the Appalachian Trail at some point.

One day I will write a novel and get it published. I've already written one novel, during National Novel Writing Month one year. It was truly awful and I deleted it when I was done. There was nothing worth salvaging.

But I did it.

The Headlight Adventures

Ever go to turn on your headlights and NOTHING happens? I have! Not that long ago, either. This was a great disappointment to me, as I'm quite fond of being able to see while driving in the dark and not so fond of dodging police cars because I'm driving without headlights.

So, it was with great trepidation and worrying that I began attempting to resolve the problem.

First step. Obvious. Change the light bulbs. This process is easier said than done. Honda's driver's manual is laughable. As if I know what the holding wire is and where it unhooks! I recruited help from my neighbor.

Brand new light bulbs, no headlights.

Crap.

Second step. Examine the fuse box. You know what's fun? Pulling every single fuse out with that little pair of fuse tweezers they give you, and then checking to see if any are bad, only to discover that they're all good. Really, it's terrific entertainment. Especially in the dark.

Third step? Declare the problem to be electrical, and check bank account. Decidedly determine that are not enough funds in bank account to finance repair of electrical problem.

Fourth step: Weep.

Fifth step. Major lifestyle changes. Including, but not limited to: do not drive at night, do not drive in rain, do not drive in fog, do not drive where there is a chance of night, rain, or fog. Bum rides. Walk. Arrange life around daylight hours. (Living on eastern edge of Central Time Zone means daylight hours are 8-3*. Adjust.)

Sixth step. Have incredibly genius neighbor suggest a bulb might be a dud. Get new light bulb. Check.

SUCCESS!


Incidentally, this was not the first car repair "dud" I have found. Once, with my old Escort, I had a brand new transmission put in it.

Two days later? Transmission went boom. Fluid and smoke driving down Telegraph Road in Redford, Michigan. Now that was an adventure.

If I win the lottery, I'm buying a new car. And a moped.


*This might just be a slight exaggeration.

Who is Jenny Beckman? - A Review of (500) Days of Summer

I was studying the poster for (500) Days of Summer when I turned to see Rachel walking toward me.

"The poster makes the movie look rather... stalkerish," I told her. (Evidence for this claim is presented at right. Click to enlarge. See for yourself.)

"It does," she agreed. "I'm going to be disappointed if it is."

"No kidding," said I. "Especially since I've built this movie up for months."

And built it up, I had. (Evidence of this is no longer available.)

Ever since I first saw the trailer for the movie I have wanted to see it for the reasons listed below:

• Joseph Gorden-Levitt.
• Zooey Deschanel.
• The soundtrack.
• The trailer.
• The way the days flipped back and forth in the trailer.
• People calling it "a romcom that isn't a romcom at all."
• The frequency with which people used the term romcom in reviews.

The problem with all of this was, the movie is a quirky, indie film. I had no idea if it would ever make its way to my little town here in Tennessee.

I thought to myself, "Well, there's always Nashville." So I made plans to go a city known rather unfortunately for country music. Then the plans fell through.

More than once.

At last I resigned myself to sitting around and waiting and hoping for the movie to come to the local theater. I declared that I would go and see it alone, if I had to. That's when Rachel stepped in and saved me from the fate of solo-ing the movie, offering to go with me if it ever made its way to Nowhere, Tennessee.

Still, there was the question of whether or not this would ever happen. I checked Fandango religiously after asking at the theater, only to find out that they didn't know. Finally, two weeks ago, the announcement came that (500) Days of Summer would be arriving Friday, September 4th.

Ecstatic, I sent Rachel a message on Twitter. This is where it's important to note that I only knew Rachel from her blog. Last year we went to the same school, saw each other in passing once, and had a near-miss opportunity to meet where we were both at the same event but at different times. So, going to see the movie was an adventure of sorts.

We worked out our schedules, and set the date for Wednesday, six days after it had opened. I had no guarantee that it would be around another six days, so it was imperative that I saw it as soon as possible.

Finally, it was time to go to the theater, meet Rachel, observe the stalkerish movie poster, and see the movie.

Meeting Rachel was brilliant. She's as lovely and funny as her blog makes her out to be. The poster was in fact stalkerish. And the movie? (Since this is supposed to be a review, after all.) The movie was totally worth the wait, and not at all stalkerish. I think that's all I really need to say.

And as of today, it's no longer showing here in Nowhere, Tennessee.