The Craziness of January

Hello blog.

It's been a crazy couple of weeks - January's been crazy in general - and yet, in retrospect, the craziness hasn't been much of the academic type. We're officially down to our second to the last module for the school year and are busying ourselves with vaginas and uteri and all that stuff that happens after sex. Which actually got me thinking last week: Why don't - or why can't our teachers say the word 'sex' in class? They always go for copulation or sexual intercourse or mating (no, they don't actually usually go for that third one). Don't give me that shiz about professionalism because there isn't anything more professional than saying 'sex' in a class of medical students with full confidence that no one will take it maliciously, me thinks. If it's indeed about that professionalism stuff, then that's just lousy. Maybe it's just me, but I'm pretty certain it's not just me. See for yourselves and you'll know what I'm talking about. They just... hesitate whenever the time comes for them to say it. There's always a shiver, however minute, or a-millimeter-of-a-step backward. It's crazy.

Speaking of crazy, I did finally get to finish a book after last semestral break's The Joy Luck Club. Behold!

I am now officially a devotee. Sorry if it took me like a million years to get hold of this... this majestic, classic piece of art. If there is a more compelling, straightforward, soulful, and honest memoir, then hand it over because I don't know if there exists such a thing. Patti, you're my woman now. Case in point: I downloaded a couple of months ago the newest Anything Goes cast recording with Sutton Foster. Last Saturday, I ended up downloading Patti's 1987 cast recording and now it's this one that's in the pod. 

In this book, you see how Topol is such a disgusting man; how The Baker's Wife is a mess and Meadowlark, a gold bar in the wrong mine; how destructive to the being Evita is in its original form performed eight times a week; how Andrew Lloyd Webber has a twisted darker side to his genius; how Glenn Close is a vocally so-so Norma Desmond, etc. More than anything, the book is juicy, but I suspect it's just the icing on top of a very delicious cake. Another book, Patti!

And as for my favorite hobby, Oscars movie-viewing, I've so far seen twenty-four. That includes Brad Pitt's sensational turn in Moneyball, the ingenious and utterly romantic Midnight in Paris (one of the best so far), Viola Davis's and Octavia Spencer's SAG-winning performances in The Help, that WEIRD hodgepodge of artsy shots called The Tree of Life (with otherwise fine acting), actress of the year Jessica Chastain times three (The Tree of Life, The Help, and the thrilling but overly under-appreciated The Debt), Bridesmaids (the best comedy film of the season, certainly one of the decade's finest), Horrible Bosses (the second funniest comedy of the season), two masterful foreigners (A Separation - "Liar, liar, pants on fire" - and Certified Copy), John C. Reilly times two (this year's Precious - Terri - and the unexpectedly brilliant Cedar Rapids), and the alien film of the season: Attack the Block.