Oh, Dear, Is It Really All True?

Recently, I read a biography of Marie Antoinette.  This is something I've been wanting to do for a long time, especially after I saw the 2006 film starring Kirsten Dunst and Jason Schwartzman.  I am not sure what draws me to the last queen of France.  I have never studied the French language, let alone the culture; I am in no way related to her (at least as far as I know -- if anyone wants to prove me wrong on that, I'm all for it); and honestly, beyond Marie Antoinette, nothing about France really interests me.  (Like anyone else, I suppose I'd like to see the Eiffel Tower one day, but I think that doesn't really count as an interest in France.)

Evelyne Lever wrote the biography I just finished, titled Marie Antoinette: The Last Queen of France.  I considered writing a review of sorts on the text, but I'm not all that good at reviews and I think there are more important discussions you can have regarding a book than whether or not it was "good."  (Though I will take the time to note that I was frustrated with how frequently Lever went out of chronological order for no perceivable reason.)

Marie Antoinette, even as Lever's biography depicts her, is an interestingly conflicted character of history.  Because of her extravagant living style and the circumstances of her death (including her personal circumstances and the political climate of France at the time), she's complex and complicated.  Even today, she is frequently misquoted with "Let them eat cake!"  (This is something Lever opted to leave out entirely; the way I see it, anytime you have an opportunity to correct people when it comes to an important historical figure, you should -- they are no longer here to defend themselves, so why shouldn't you do it for them?)

The 2006 film, titled after it's heroine, depicts Marie Antoinette in a similarly complicated way.  From what I understand, the film was based on a biography by Antonia Fraser titled Marie Antoinette: The Journey.  The film begins portraying Marie Antoinette as a scared, fifteen-year-old pawn in her mother's political games.  She is more or less alone as she enters France after leaving her home country of Austria.  After she appears to adjust some, the extreme spending begins.  She redesigns the garden, she orders a hamlet of several small cottages be built for her own sake, and she hosts lavish parties which include gambling, drinking, and rich foods.

But before you start judging her for being financially irresponsible and selfish, take into consideration that a) she was relatively young at the time (she died before she turned forty), b) her mother and others were pressuring her to produce an heir even when her husband, Louis XVI and she had trouble consummating their marriage (it took several years before they even had sex), and c) she had been taken from her home at fifteen to marry a boy of the same age she had never met.  I'll leave it to you to come up with more reasons.  In any case, who hasn't heard of some retail therapy?  Marie Antoinette went overboard, no question -- but who can blame her?

Conflicted character aside, I learned some interesting things about Marie Antoinette's life while reading this biography.  First, that she was incredibly smart.  Throughout her trial (which ended poorly for her, but that's besides the point), her main defense was she was only doing her duty as a wife in supporting her husband and her king.  Now, if trying to convince a bunch of misogynistic 18th-century male jury members that she was just trying to be a submissive and subservient wife in order to save her skin wasn't smart, I don't know what is.  Unfortunately, it didn't work and if that didn't I can't imagine what would have.

During the trial, people spoke to her son, the Dauphin.  He claimed that both his mother and his aunt (his father's sister, Madam Elisabeth) encouraged him/trained him to masturbate in the morning while he lied between them on a bed.  Marie Antoinette, Madam Elisabeth, and Marie Therese (Marie Antoinette's daughter) all denied this, but the accusation did not help her situation.  It seems, if Marie Antoinette did not sexually abuse her son (which is unclear -- Lever does not offer an opinion, nor do the facts indicate strongly one way or the other, unless we take Marie Antoinette's letter to her sister-in-law at face value), the Dauphin's tutor did.  Of course, it was at a point when the Dauphin was caught playing with himself by the tutor when the Dauphin told about his mother and aunt.

After the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette was eventually viewed as the courageous woman she was.  Aside from her apparent reveal of military action prior to its occurrence to other countries (which falls under high treason), Marie Antoinette was an admirable queen and person.  What makes her such an interesting historical figure and, more importantly, monarch, for me, is that she was not infallible.  She made many mistakes and was human.  This is not to say that other leaders are perfect.  Certainly they have made mistakes.  The differences this, those mistakes and faults were covered up by themselves and PR people for at least the duration of their reign for the most part.  (Before you get all excited, shouting names like Bill Clinton and Henry VIII, I recognize that this is a generalization.)  But perhaps what makes her even more interesting to me was that she was a woman who went from being pushed around to being an eloquent and intelligent queen -- both of herself and her people.

This song, the source of the blog post title (like all my others thus far), is featured in the 2006 film.

You Wanna Know More, More, More about Me

There are a lot of things I want to talk about on this blog.  I expected to have a harder time coming up with topics, but as I'm sitting in the RA office a half-hour early for duty, I'm finding I have a lot more to say than I originally thought.  At this point, I don't think it's necessarily the best idea to talk about broad and philosophical concepts.  At least, I probably shouldn't before any readers I might have have a better understanding of who I am and where I'm coming from.  Those things aren't that interesting, to be honest, but they're important.

This is me.

I grew up in a medium-sized town in New England in the Nineties and Double-Zeros.  My younger brother was a constant companion until he got friends of his own.  I had friends off and on growing up, but was never really able to hold onto any.  Friends tended to dump me rather frequently and for frivolous reasons.  Because of this, I spent a lot of my time reading.  Mom and I went to the library whenever we had the urge.  I remember going more often in the summertime, and remember standing over the air conditioning grate in "The Little Library" (which wasn't its real name, just something we called it because it was small and the other library was substantially larger).  So I read a lot of books growing up -- nothing specific, although I tended to avoid biographies.

In addition to reading on my own, I enjoyed going to school.  My favorite teachers include my second grade teacher, my sixth grade English teacher (or, "Language Arts," as they call it in middle school), my seventh and eighth grade English teacher, my middle school German teacher, and my high school German teacher.  School came easily to me and I was placed in a number of programs and testing opportunities to determine just how smart I was.  I'm not sure how much good it did -- I do well in college, but I still pay to be here.

I'm not sure exactly when it was that I discovered writing.  It's possible it was in first or second grade when the class did a series of Eric Carle-inspired paintings, found shapes in them to facilitate a story, and wrote the story to go along with it.  My story involved a time traveling dog and some dinosaurs.  This amuses me now -- I don't really like dogs.  I don't dislike them, but I prefer to be in dog-free environments.  They're so suffocating and overwhelming.

Which brings me to my pets.  Before I was born, my parents adopted two cats: Winston (named after Dr. Winston O'Boogie and Winston Churchill) and Vincent (named after the beast character in the Beauty and the Beast television serial).  When I was six and my brother four, my aunt got my brother a gerbil for his birthday.  Well, I wanted a pet too.  I wanted a cat.  At this point, Winston had passed away.  I do not know what from, but I do remember Mom and Dad injecting him with medication for a period before he died.  Winston hissed on the cold floor of the kitchen, inching away from the syringe filled with a milky liquid.  I felt bad for the cat but couldn't help him.

To an extent, however, I consider myself the cause of Vincent's death.  Shortly after we adopted the cat I had begged for (along with a second because of some misunderstandings between my parents), Vincent began looking rather sick and droopy.  He lied in his cat food and water bowl and was sluggish.  Mom took him to get put to sleep while I was at school and when I realized what she had done, I was angry that she did not let me say goodbye.  We've talked about this since and I understand why she did it, but now she wishes she had let my brother and I say goodbye to Vincent.

Tigger and Sergeant Pepper (or just Pepper; the two cats we adopted) were trouble makers.  We're fairly certain it's their presence that killed Vincent.  They later let the gerbil out (Smokey the Speedrunner) which in turn ruined the refrigerator by chewing through the wires, chewed a hole in the wall, and let mice in, which let fleas in.  Tigger and Pepper also took turns marking their territory on one of the bottom stairs, making it nearly impossible to sell the house when I was fourteen.

Fourteen was around the time I started experiencing anxiety and depression.  Prior to this, when I was twelve, doctors diagnosed me with polycystic ovarian syndrome (or PCOS).  It's a complicated and misunderstood diagnosis, but I recommend looking into it, especially if you're female -- it's more common than you think.  The symptoms are  not easily treated, except for a few, and it has lead to bullying issues because of the physical appearance I, and many girls like me, inherit due to the PCOS.

Anyway, when I was fourteen, I was kicked out of another group of friends and we moved to the other side of town (for unrelated reasons) and I was beginning high school.  Panic attacks began to plague me more frequently than I could handle.  We went to the doctor who suggested I see a therapist.  So I did.  And I hated every minute of it.  This is not to say that someone should not try therapy -- quite the opposite.  Do try therapy, but be aware that not every therapist is right for every patient.  This was not something I was aware of at the time and I quickly became frustrated that a) I was being blamed for everything in my life, b) I couldn't talk about what I wanted to talk about during sessions, and c) my condition wasn't improving.  We went back to the doctor as I was still experiencing panic attacks and I was prescribed Lexapro.  For a while, I did both the therapy and the pills, but eventually decided to drop the therapy.  I've been on the Lexapro ever since.

I graduated high school in 2010 with few real friends to speak of, so felt little loss when deciding to go to college over seven hundred miles away.  I missed my family most of the time, but have grown so much in the last two and a half years that I wouldn't exchange it for anything.

For now, I'm pursuing an English degree with a concentration in creative writing and a minor in psychology at a small women's college in Virginia.  After my undergraduate degree, I plan to go to graduate school to obtain my Master's in Library/Information Science.  My current goal is to acquire the Library of Congress Junior Fellows 2013 Summer Internship which is highly competitive but something I am confident I would do well in such a position.  For now, I can only hope and wait.

Now that you've read a brief life history of me, I can get onto more important topics, like the biography of Marie Antoinette I just read and the title of this blog -- until next time.

It's Been a Long Lonely Time

Zeppelin got  it right -- it has been a long time.  I have not had a personal blog in quite a while now, and it's high time I got back to it.  While I do keep a blog related to my work life on tumblr, and frequently update my Facebook page (if you can even count that as a blog), my life is completely lacking in a typical public journal type of blog.  Of course, my aim here is not solely to entertain you with bits of my life -- though if you find yourself entertained, I am all the more satisfied with my "work."  Instead, my plan is to get into the habit of writing daily, whether it be about how I miss my cats, what it's like going to a college entirely devoid of Y-chromosomes (at least in the traditional sense), or how my latest writing endeavor is turning out, I will write about it.

I am also, to the best of my ability, going to try to avoid gimmicks.  I will be flattered if I attain and retain readers, but the presence of others in this cyberspace is not a main motivation.  The world has more important things going on than the life of a twenty-one-year-old who is still figuring everything out.  That said, if you happen to be reading these words and care to participate in a dialogue, I encourage you to make use of the comment button.  I am always up for a good discussion.

Now that I've gotten some introductions out of the way, I'll tell you a bit about my day, which was tolerably dull and typical.  Today began, for me, at 8:00 this morning when my alarm beeped at me.  I hit the snooze.  This pattern continued until 8:36, at which time I decided it was necessary to get up and get ready for work which, in my case, consists of three hours in the Housing and Residence Life office at my university.  The time I spend in the office for my "HRA (Head Resident Assistant) hours" are intended as time for RAs to come and talk to me, but most of the time, I use the hours to create new door decorations (door decs) for RAs, plan programs for first year students, and figure out the best ways to make my boyfriend laugh.  It's highly productive.

For my office hours this morning, which go from nine until noon, I spent my time creating advertising for some programs in the upcoming months.  I've done a lot of thinking about advertising methods throughout my career as a resident assistant.  It only occurred to me recently to use color palettes to make my advertising more eye-catching.  I have the wedding tags on Pinterest to thank for this particular inspiration.  For much of my grammar school years, I considered going into marketing as a career.  Instead, I did the smart thing and became an English major, for which there is no job market.  More on that later.

Anyway, after my three hours in the office, I went to lunch.  The food was sub-par and unsatisfying as usual.  Consistently, at my dining hall, I eat until I am full to the brim yet I remain unsatisfied.  I constantly feel as if my body is lacking in something, but I can never determine what.  I'm beginning to believe it's protein, but I can't be sure.  During lunch, I had my now-daily cup of chai tea.  Until recently, I was a firm believer that tea tasted like dirt.  I am no longer of this opinion.

Following lunch was the first day of the last week of J-Term classes for me.  In my class, which is titled On the Next Episode: TV as a Narrative Text, we discussed cartoons (specifically, Rugrats) and reality television (specifically, Survivor) before watching the final two episodes of Freaks and Geeks.  Tomorrow we will be presenting on assigned scenes.  I have already prepared two spiderweb plots (as in graphic organizers) in order to assist my presentation.  Yes, they are color-coded.  No, I am not ashamed to say so.  Thursday, our group-created pilot scripts are due.  I am not overly concerned about either of these projects given that J-Term classes are pass/fail.

For those of you who do not know, J-Term classes are essentially classes which run through the month of January and end.  Spring semester begins in February.  J-Terms typically consist of one class for each student, rather than a "full" schedule.  However, these classes meet more frequently than a typical schedule.  At my university, these classes tend to be on more trivial and "fun" subjects than regular-semester classes.  Hence my class on television, during which we spent the most time watching television.

After class, I waited half-an-hour before the dining hall opened.  I called my mother to check in on her as she has a particularly nasty cold.  Dinner was about as good as lunch -- edible, but only just.  (This is not to say that I don't appreciate the work the people who provide food for me daily -- I do, really.  I understand that they do not necessarily have control over what food they make.)

This is the journal I use regularly and
brought with me to my meet up.

I planned to go to a meet up for writers downtown after dinner and a friend came along.  We got somewhat lost on the way there and drove past the place three times, but she was amused by my one-sided conversations with other drivers. I was glad to be entertaining, if nothing else.

The meet up itself was organized and, well, meeting by 6:40 or so, after we had all found each other staring awkwardly and waiting for the first person to make a move.  Conversation wasn't bad, though because of a raging headache that's been plaguing me almost all day, I found I wasn't quite as able to assert my place in conversation as I wanted.  Next time will be better.

Speaking of the headache, I had thought it might be either a caffeine headache or a dehydration headache.  I had plenty of water and caffeine, today, however.  After taking some ibuprofen (among the other medication I take daily, which I'm sure I'll talk more about in the future) and relaxing in bed while writing, I'm feeling better, if a little tired.

That said, I am off to do other things for the rest of my evening, which may or may not consist of the homework I have been assigned.