Saturday, December 16, 2006

From Celebration To Movie

Coming to the point to apply for Ph.D. was not that hard especially since I enjoy Art History and Criticism and its theories so much. But in this process filling the applications and putting together materials requested for each school was one thing and accepting that your package is good enough to be sent was another. It is with this second part, that I really have a hard time. Getting satisfaction from the materials, which I am sending, and saying to myself: “it is enough and there is nothing left for me to do” was and is so painful that I don’t even want to get there. Anyway I just sent my application for two of the schools that I am applying for.

At 9 am the post office was packed with people sending their holiday cards, mostly for Christmas and New Year and not for Hanukkah, since we are in its second day already. I waited 20 minuets for my turn. I usually prefer to use the Self-Mailing-Machine rather than going to a clerk but today the machine was not working either. At any account I sent them today with a lot of hope anxiously hanging in my belly.

I am still busy with my paper. Although my adviser was very happy with the second draft of my thesis and I got a lot of “Bravos” and “Excellent Jobs” I like to write some more formal discussions on the painting itself.

And soon it is our Mithraism celebration of Shab-e Yalda. It is the historical Persian celebration of the longest night of the year. Mithraists considered this the night in which the sun is borne and since this night days become longer and longer. I love Yalda, but around this time I always miss my family greatly: we always celebrated Yalda in our home with watermelons, pomegranates and lots of dried fruits.

Today we are invited to join the celebration of the second day of Hanukkah with our dear friends. And I have to get ready. so: Happy Hanukkah.


P.S. we just got back; it was a very cheerful night; lighting candles, dancing and singing about 14 songs. My friend translated the songs for me they are about lighting the candles and the miracle of light that happened after a victory in a war and we had a really merry night.

In the last month or so I saw these movies and I make it short since I am going to see one right now:

The Queen (2006): B+ [Good and slow, the thing that I did not like very much was the release of this News weeks after The Queen was shown.]

Marie Antoinette (2006): A [I like Sofia Coppola and once again she has proved that she sees from a new angle with a very creative music choice: Modern Music over Louis the XIV ‘s Royal Curt.]

Happy Feet (2006): F [even for Kids it is not good just save yourself some time and money don’t see it. Your are hearing it from someone who loves animations]

Flags of Our Fathers (2006): A- [Not one of Clint Eastwood’s best but certainly kept me hanging for seeing the second part.]

Stranger Than Fiction (2006): B- [When a nice story gets destroyed by famous actors: Not that they did not play good. In fact they were really good but for such a story you don’t want to know the actors. I believe the cast should have been made of amateurs. I would have liked to read the story rather than seeing it. I think my imagination would have worked better.]


Hanukkah Night


2 comments:

Reel Fanatic said...

I have to say I just thoroughly enjoyed The Queen . I knew going in that Helen Mirren would be great, but I didn't expect that the tete-a-tete between the queen and Mr. Blair would be quite so clever

Anonymous said...

We celebrated Yalda in your home , but this year all of our relatives came to say goodbye to me :(