I've been featured!

One of my photos has been featured on Life out of a Suitcase -- a travel blog for young women. Click above to see the post!

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Alfred Werker.

My first movie review! This one is going to be published some time this week in the Sundial and is on Sherlock Holmes (2009).

Downey as Holmes and Law as Watson

Source: Wikipedia

First of all: Robert Downey, Jr. is to Sherlock Holmes as David Tennant is to Doctor Who. In other words, this isn’t your grandma’s Basil Rathbone, deerstalker cap wearing, armchair in front of the fireplace Sherlock Holmes, and thank goodness for that. Don’t listen to what the critics tell you; Sherlock Holmes needed a makeover. Downey’s Holmes provides a refreshing new look at this really rather shady character, showing the audience his rougher side featuring fist fights and drug abuse. But don’t worry, his wit is still as sharp as ever.

But let’s not forget Jude Law’s depiction of the more grounded, less suicidally rash Dr. Watson. Downey’s Holmes and Law’s Watson are an absolute delight to watch, and are the driving force behind the film. Sure, the special effects are great, but if there were a movie that was nothing more than these two men locked in a room together bantering, I’d watch it. The greatest strength of Sherlock Holmes is found in the gem conversations of this star-crossed bromance, and the actors who make it happen.

So come for the brilliant acting of Downey and Law, but stay for the style. Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes is the height of Victorian fashion and innovation dragged through the mud with an eye for the rising fad that is often titled “steampunk”. Wild Wild West attempted the look in 1999 and failed, as have many films since then. But Sherlock Holmes is the closest to embodying this grungy fashion without becoming obsessed with the gimmick of it. In the same way, the action and special effects are present and interesting without being overpowering. The movie manages to be a detective movie with a bit of action, rather than an action movie that attempts a bit of mystery.

The plot of the movie is one of the hottest topics among critics. The story does at first seem to be ridiculous, involving a mess of supernatural suspicions. However, an avid reader of Sherlock Holmes might agree that many times the story line is supposed to be ridiculous. It seems both in reading the books and in watching the movie unfold, the more ridiculous the plot line and the more that people buy into it, the more Holmes feels intrigued and prodded into discovering the truth behind the suspicious events. Your average crime won’t hold the attention of this impulsive detective, and you’re expected to know, like him, that the magic is just a red herring: the real adventure lies in uncovering the man behind the curtain.

Sherlock Holmes can be an enjoyable, thrilling experience, but should be approached with the right expectations and attitude. Don’t expect Basil Rathbone. Don’t expect Nigel Bruce. Don’t expect BBC Masterpiece Theatre. Everything after that, dear Watson, is elementary. So if you have a chance to catch it at the dollar theatre, do so! If not, look forward to its DVD release on March 30th.

Reading "Wow"

I was asked by a campus reporter to submit a story from Reading, something that shows the behind-the-scenes joys of the program and something that made me go "wow"! It took me a day to narrow it down, and while I cut out getting mugged in France, finding an apartment for myself in Athens via a one-in-a-million-chance-rendezvous in a Tube station, and dancing Thriller in silence with the rest of my house in Trafalgar Square, I thought this was a nice moment to relay. Not as epic, perhaps, but it was more relevant to the Reading program itself.

It was a dark and blustery night. I'd been listening to the Beatles my whole life, so just being in Liverpool was a dream come true. But I was beside myself that night because my friends and I were all talking about going down to the Cavern Club, the venue where the Beatles got their start. It was still a thriving club, and we'd heard the night before had had mediocre music, but we decided to go give it a try, if only for the novelty of being there. We fought the wind (we must've looked like those men in the old movies who hold onto lamp posts, it was that strong) all the way to the pedestrian center of Liverpool and finally arrived in the Cavern Club. I think the next moment is a memory that will live in my head forever. As I led the group down the spirally stair case that descended into the cave-like club, I slowly came to the realization that the air was filling with the sound of the climax of Hey Jude, being sung by a live band. When I finally reached the bottom, it was like I walked into one of my childhood dreams: the room opened up from the tunnel of the stair well and exploded in sound as an entire mob of people sang the final words of "Hey Jude" in front of a stage littered in color. To me, that moment was the very meaning of the word "perfection". It was like bringing my parents to the Westminster Tube stop right under Big Ben and telling them to look up right as she starts ringing. Or finding the perfect pair of Wellies while standing in a shoe store in Bath, my current shoes completely soaked through and leaving puddles on the floor. Or cooking Thanksgiving dinner with my housemates, my new found family in my home-away-from-home. Or eating meat pies in a shop called Sweeney & Todd. Or seeing Les Mis in Covent Garden. Or going to Midsummer Night's Dream in the Globe Theatre. Or watching Harry Potter in Leicester Square. Or taking the train into Paddington Station. Actually, it was perfect like spending a year of my life in Reading, England with some of the best people I could ever care to meet. It really doesn't get any better than that.

R-MWC in retrospect

Jenny and I on the day I moved in.

Jenny Baird, as she was then called, graduated from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in May 1999. She, the world-wise older sister, regaled me, the excitable middle schooler, with tales of her college. At age 11, I was amazed that this small college had a creative writing major, a study abroad program in England, and—this was the icing on the cake—horses! I’m now neither a Creative Writing major nor a horseback rider (though I did make it to England), yet at Macon, in the one year that I did attend Macon, I found something even greater.

Reena and I as first-years, Day II of the strike.

As a senior in high school, I was plagued with a crippling mental affliction: I hated women. I saw women as the older versions of the stuck up, bitchy, rude, and mean girls at my high school, and therefore not worth my time. I also hated being a woman, and hated the role in life that, according some traditionalists with whom I surrounded myself, I was supposed to play. Luckily I had an older sister, and she helped keep that ray of hope that women might one day be redeemable in my eyes. Along with her tales of horses, writing, and England, Jenny inspired me to follow in her mature, intelligent, and caring footsteps and was in my eyes what I later learned had a name here: a Randolph-Macon Woman. I told myself that if Jenny could go to a woman’s college and enjoy it, there must be something that female companionship had to offer; I should give women a chance, and R-MWC was the right place to do it.

Jenny was, consequentially, the first person I called after I’d made my final decision. The conversation went something like this:

“Jenny, I know where I’m going for college.”

“Katherine, that’s wonderful!” There was a pause. “So, if you go, you’ll be graduating in 2010?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“You’ll be an even, then.”

“I guess I will, yea.”

“You know I was an odd, right?”

A pause. “I think that might be a problem, Jenny.”

I hadn’t even arrived and already I felt like I had an identity at Macon. But being here was an experience that I never expected. Within the first week, I had more female friends than I’d ever had in my life. There was something about being surrounded by women and hearing about women and thinking about women that helped me see how amazing and strong women really are. It helped me love being a woman, to stand up for and respect myself more than I ever had before. I discovered that the value of single sex education was more than classroom-deep, and that this place was more than just a college. Thanks to R-MWC, I have learned to proudfully define myself not only as a Classicist, a writer, a traveller… but also as a woman. And I will forever strive to achieve that highest accolade of respectability, maturity, womanliness, and class: the title of a Randolph-Macon Woman.

Submitted to the Sundial campus paper in response to a prompt asking seniors for articles answering the question "What does R-MWC mean to you?"

A Cretan Random Happenstance

Dr. Irwin asked me to write up on my experience in Crete for the Tales of Reading website (HERE). I thought I'd include it here, too. =)



Let me start by saying that I love England. Any country that successfully combines tea and men wearing tights while quoting Shakespeare and calls it culture is alright by me. So when I go on to say that I traded my remaining time in England to go adventuring in Greece, know that it wasn’t because I couldn’t stand the place any more. True, it could’ve had a bit more sun, but even so, I was devastated to leave England behind. There are so many things to experience in England, and I returned over the summer because, frankly, I wasn’t done with it yet. I’m still not, and I don’t know if I ever will be.
One thing that I understood only superficially before I left for Reading was the fact that I would be studying at a completely different University for a year. There were many differences between Reading in England and my little college on the hill in Virginia, but one of the things the two had in common was the availability of study abroad programs. I ended up taking an archaeological class with a fellow student from Macon, Sam Henderson, and our professor mentioned that she would be taking several students to Crete in the spring to help her with her dig there. Our ears perked up at the mention of it, and then the question came to us: can one study abroad, while studying abroad? We were full Reading University students during our year abroad, and so when we asked the question to those who would know, the answer was a resounding “Yes you can!” I gave up my hopes to study in a more exotic country to participate in the Reading program, and here I was facing the possibility of having my cake and eating it too. So when we got our acceptance emails in March, neither of us could really believe it. We were going to Greece!
It was strange to go from adjusting to life in one foreign country to adjusting to another completely different place. Neither of us spoke Greek, but after a few days there we learned ‘good morning’, ‘please’, and ‘thank you’, which seemed to be the vital things to know in the small town on the coast of Crete where we spent the next three weeks. We were travelling with two other Reading students, and the four of us became a close group. I’ll never forget spending the days on a hill overlooking the coast while washing bits of ancient pottery and spending my nights huddled around a table in a family-run taverna, eating home cooked Greek food and being fed free raki—the local liquor of Crete. It was simply beautiful, in many senses of the term, and the whole village seemed to know about the four young archaeological women in their midst. As if that wasn’t enough, we got to explore much of the rest of the island on our days off.
At the same time that Sam and I were in Crete, another group from Reading was doing a dig in Jordan, and I'm pretty sure that's an opportunity that's usually available. Reading is great all around, but especially has some amazing opportunities for the budding archaeologist, not only Silchester and not only in Crete, but so many more; all one has to do is ask and look into it. I honestly believe that going to Reading is probably the best thing an archaeology student at the home campus can do for her or his future career. I cannot believe the amount of opportunities I've had in the past year, and I feel so grateful that I took the leap, both in going in Reading and in taking all the chances I was offered there. Why stop when you get to Reading? Sure, just going to Reading is great; but it's a lot more fun to thrive there! As Miss Frizzle of the Magic School Bus used to say, “Take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!” Who knows? Maybe you’ll get as far as Greece.