Now, now

In the list of my top five fav musical acts, St. Vincent definitely has a firm place.



Our new volunteer arrived Friday! Now the whirlwind that has been Head Teaching and taking the place of a regular teacher will hopefully die down.

We only have one month left here . . . that's sad, yet exciting, to think about. Sad because I'll miss Russia of course; exciting because it's a new chapter of my life with Seve. The "married for whole year already" chapter, the "finally graduated and getting a real job to put Seve through school and food on the table" chapter. But then again, I'm really loving the "party in Russia!" chapter. Alright, no more book metaphor.

What Kind of Blog Are You?

Having such a late teaching schedule, coming home each night Seve and I are exhausted with not much incentive to go out. Not as much as we used to, anyway. A lack of funds in the bank also keeps us in more often since Moscow is on a comparable scale of expensivness to Tokyo. And we just spent a pretty penny going out each night in St. Petersburg . . .

What I'm trying to say is: I've had a lot of time to read lately.

In the previous entry I stated I'm more into reading "what's going on now?" mediums than curling up with a Bronte classic. Aside from my usual news outlets, recently I've been into the blogging world. Discovering my friends' blogs has been like finding their diaries left open in their rooms, only not as peeping Tom-ish since they're holding the bedroom door wide open and offering me to take a peek.

Here are some types of blogs I've come across, without reference to any of the actual friends' blogs I've been reading:

1. The Mormon-Mommy Blog, seen at its best here and at its most satirized here. These things have picked up in popularity and almost seem like a requisite process for young LDS newlywed females everywhere after the honeymoon has ended. Posts about crafts, cooking, summer fun, IKEA, moving in, and "loving life" are frequent. Side-bar baby tickers, scripture/general authority quotes, Etsy shops and layouts that look like scrapbooking pages help to distinguish these blogs right away. Being Mormon myself, these blogs make me feel at home and alienated at the same time. Maybe because I grew up nowhere near Utah?
2. The Fashionista Blog, explored here, here, and here. These things either have a "OMG looky!" tone or an artistic might-as-well-be-speaking-in-whispers tone. Or they're just written in mimics of the editorials the writers themselves read in their "glossies." Some have clean, white layouts (another "glossy" mimic) while others have antique wallpaper backgrounds. The layouts reflect the style of the authors themselves, which range from avant-garde to 1940's pining with various Forever21 looks in between. Either way, be prepared for 3-10 photographs per entry of the author in various modelesqe poses and descriptions of what they're wearing/where they bought it. And lots of references to designers only the Milan elite, and, well, they care about.
3. The Job Blog, seen here and here. These are the kind that come to mind when one says "blog". Authors write about their day to day lives, including anecdotes here and there and photos where appropriate. Namely these showcase the projects they're working on, and inspiration for those projects via a playlist or another artist's work. These are blogs owned by businesses, individual artists, musicians, or novelists, etc. These are the blog norm, and are true to the idea that blogs are in fact public and do not need to include any deeply personal details about the author. In fact, they never get any deeper than the kind of content one would use in basic conversation. Just enough information to satisfy a fan, usually.
4. The Suicide Blog, which I won't provide a reference for because I'd dread an author ever finding out I named it this. These were more popular in my teen years, because all my teen friends had one, including me. These are teen angsty, include a lot of song lyrics, poorly written poetry, and aspirations for NaNoWriMo. They are bipolar in that the authors jump from overly happy posts of mall purchases to overly dramatic posts of break-ups and bad grades. The sadness of these blogs is that the authors have grown up, and are still blogging. Entries that once dealt with a bad day at school now confide to readers tales of bad marriages, debt, and depression that oftentimes carries suicidal undertones. These blogs are treated like real diaries, with entries that make the audience uncomfortable with the details offered, or open up the author to mockery by less kind readers.
5. The Editorial Blog, here and here. If you really think about it, there are two kinds of blogs out there: those that reveal the author, and those that don't. Either you're writing about yourself or you're writing about something else, as in you're writing as if the blog is a column. These blogs are informative, sometimes written by multiple authors and focus on one topic such as music, art, video games or baking with squash. More exciting are the witty, mysterious, one-liner and/or mini-story blogs. Personality is found only in the writing style itself, gender/age/location is a tossup, and no profile pages or about-me sections exist so your computer may as well have generated the posts. But when these blogs pick up in popularity, book deals usually bring these authors into the public eye.

Did you notice my use of Blogspot's handy numbered-bulleting feature? Mm hmm.

Of course, these are only a few, and don't include the whopping majority of the blogosphere: the "My name is Ed and I just did a buttload-o-laundry today!" blog; the blogging style 11 out of 10 bloggers normally use. Something similar to Blog #3 only written by the average Joe, the you and the me. Sometimes accompanied by a "currently listening to/reading/craving/watching/grinding" status. Personally, I'd like to be more like Blog #3, and worry that I've become too much like Blog #5 while looking like Blog #2. I didn't even mention the blogs out there written by celebrities pretending to be someone else, which is how some writers got their celebrity start to begin with (see: Diablo Cody).

I grew up blogging. I've had all kinds of blogs, and thanks to the great storage closet that is the Internet, they are all still out there somewhere to be read by anyone desperate enough to find them. Where I'm trying to steer this post is to the fact that the blog I currently, well, blog in, doesn't reveal a lot of me aside from my quirky thoughts and big-A pictures. Because no one ever did read those other blogs I wrote, and for the first time in my blogging life, I want to be read.

Anyone who knows me personally knows I already have an upfront "here I be in Moscow" blog for family that borderlines Blog #1. But I don't feel like it's me writing in it so much as it's me explaining life in Russia to my Grandmas.

So, what I'm trying to say is, I'd like to reveal more of the real me in this blog. And until any of the photos I snap of me and my husband reach a good, desirable lomo quality, that just might happen.

Rand & Capote highlighted speakers at the Ego Conference, Dylan & Prince to perform (separately, of course)

It's no secret that I'm not a great cook. I'm into simple baking.

I'm also not incredibly well read. I'm more of a newspapers 'n magazines kinda girl. 

This novel I really enjoyed. A dog catcher who unwillingly dawns on werewolf gangs schmoozing the streets of L.A., East L.A., and the entire thing written in free verse? I'm not about to pretend I enjoyed reading something as pretenious as The Fountainhead; no, this is the kind of stuff that gets me interested.

FYI, I have a job interview. For a job I'm really excited for.

Everyone's got sweet shoes here

My husband and I are visiting St. Petersburg this week. While on our way to the Russian Museum and St. Isaac's Cathedral (ha, yeah!) we exited the wrong end of our metro stop and found neither. No worries, we ventured and explored and found a hipster junk-made-into-stuff store. They sold clocks made out of bicycle parts, knitted dolls, earrings made out of single kopecks (that, ironically, cost 7000 kopecks) and a computer-keyboard guitar.

Think of a regular keytar, only instead of a musical keyboard it's the kind you're currently typing on. All the employees had asymmetrical haircuts and some not-quite-techno, not-quite-folk music was playing. I tell ya, this is the Russia that tugs on my heartstrings. More on that later. Also, we saw that awesome new Michael Jackson film. Also, I'm excited to see Whip It when I get back to the States. Catch the tie-in? Oh, so witty.

Haha!

$34?

Sometimes I wake up in the night and think "Holy smokes! Where am I?" and have to remind myself I'm in Russia and all my peeps are in America wide awake doing American things. Sometimes I'm wide awake at noon and think "Holy smokes! This place is expensive," and have to remind myself I'm in Russia and all my peeps are in America where leggings cost $4.50 like they should.

Maybe Frankenstien? Or a Mime? Zombie? Minnie Mouse?

I needs a Halloween costume.