The Name of The Doctor

"Run. Run you clever boy and remember me."

So let's talk about "The Name of the Doctor", the last episode of the most recent season of Doctor Who that ended just a few weeks ago. And yes I realize I'm a little behind on this train, but with a full time job and until the recent summer break, going to school full time, do you really expect me to have time to watch Who a lot? So it took me a bit to catch up on. (And now even more on Supernatural, which I also plan on reviewing in here, when I eventually catch up). And I'm really trying to review more in here, and review more in general. It's to improve not only my writing skills but my observational and comprehension skills. I mean, I'm an English Major; I take everything and tear it apart to little pieces that somehow string it together in this great big ball of metaphorical meaning. So why can't I do that with TV shows, eh?

Pre-warning, spoilers ahead!

So let's talk about Clara first. Above all in Doctor Who I think that the story isn't really the story of the Doctor but more of the story of the companion. When you think about it really, the Doctor's life is shaped around the people he takes with him and what they learn from him and what he learns from them. With Clara as a companion, I have to be honest, I'm a little wishy-washy. She's clever and strong willed, but not really to the point of being annoying, like I sometimes found Amy to be. And obviously there's something special about her, the girl who had died twice but still lives on. I was really interested to find out about her and had a great time reading all the random theories around about her, I was a particular fan of the one where she was actually the Dalek emperor from Bad Wolf. But my biggest problem with Clara is that while she is lovely and all there was really no character development for me in her, to mean, even in this episode where she willingly died to save the Doctor's life, I think she is same girl he picked up in The Bells of Saint John. But what I do like is that she eventually turned out to be just a normal girl, a girl who went through pain and loss, but saved the Doctor anyway. Some of what has started to annoy me about Who is that is has come to the point where the Doctor only likes mysteries and big exciting things. I miss the time when he was fascinated by humans, just them in their everyday lives. So in the end when it turns out Clara was just human, and a very brave one at that, it made me happy.

Then there was the whole part with the Great Intelligence. I'm not a huge fan of Classic Who, I've only watched a bit of the Fourth and Fifth Doctor (and some of the seventh and the eighth), so I feel like viewers like me, who are mostly fans of modern day Who, may have been a bit confused. I mean, I myself, because I research Who too much, knows what The Great Intelligence is, whereas I think others will not know, or at least not know to the extent as they should know.

In general I think a lot of the episode was a bit anti-climatic, because there wasn't really a lot of running. As to say the action in this story was kind of a minimum and they just kind of willingly went a long with The Great Intelligence and his minions. And when he was about to jump into the Doctor's timeline and everyone was just standing around I was like, 'Why won't anyone stop him or you know just do something besides staring?' I guess you could say I missed some of the action that we usually see in season finales. I just feel like a lot of the climax was built up to Clara, like this is her, this is what she is. Which was good and all but it ended up with me being two thirds of the way into the episode and going, "What, it's really nearly over?"

I loved Madame Vastra, Jenny, and Strax in this episode; they provide quite a bit of comic relief to what might have been an otherwise a dark and serious episode. I just love the friendship between the three. And I'm just really fond of the scene where Jenny is dead and Vastra begs Strax to bring her back, and he does almost in an instant saying 'Matters of the heart are always simple.' And Vastra answers back 'I have found that they are not'. GOD DAMMIT, HER AND JENNY ARE SO FRIGGIN LESBIANS! THIS SHIP IS MY FAVORITE SIDE SHIP IN ALL OF WHO! Except for Sally Sparrow and the cop in 'Blink'.

Now let's go into the River and the Doctor part. Now I'm just going to say, this episode was teeming with oodles of fan service for River and the Doctor shippers. There was the fact that he had told Clara about her, a little about her. And did you see the expression on his face when he saw her tombstone? He was in agony. And then of course the way he just casually says 'They wouldn’t bury my wife here', it's just too perfect.  And of course when he admits to seeing her, when the he talks about the pain it would cause him and how yes, it does. Because this is after 'Silence in the Library', this is after her death. And the kiss, well, it gets a 110% on a scale of 10%. And I'm sure I sounded like a rambling fangirl in this paragraph, but to be completely honest I'm mostly on the fence with the RiverXDoctor thing. Sometimes I like them together, sometimes I don't. In this episode I liked them quite a lot.

And some last general things with this episode: I loved the Doctor's tombstone, the way it was the Tardis, and standing more massive than anything in this creepy eerie fashion. Cinematography wise is was stunning and chilling, I'm used to seeing this Tardis as this brilliant blue box and there is in Trenzalore, like the ruins of some lost city. And the clever jokes in the mist room, I can't help but thinking they were a group of friends sitting around the table playing pass the joint. The subject was very serious but I couldn't help but thinking it. And then Matt Smith's face when he asked 'Are you sure he said Trenzalore?' He was going to cry, the Doctor in tears. And when boys cry, I cry, and it's just not a pleasant thing.

Then there's the whole mystery of Clara, how it was finally solved. I thought it was brilliant. She's scattered across the universe, destined to save the Doctor. I loved the clips of her in all the Classic Who episodes, as cheesy as the effects were, they were brilliant. And when she told the Doctor he was stealing the wrong Tardis, it gave me chills. More appeared when she was lost in the fog, hearing the Doctor's voice and watching all of his different reincarnations running by. Then there was the leaf, the most important leaf in all of history, the one that brought her into the world. And I was thinking, this is some nice neat little package to wrap Clara up in. But then, no, it wasn't. The man, the questions. How it is him but not the Doctor. And then the 'Introducing John Hurt as the Doctor', what was that. WHAT WAS THAT?!?!?!?

You wanna know what is it was?

PROBABLY THE BIGGEST AND MOST MYSTERIOUS CLIFF HANGER IN ALL OF FUCKING DOCTOR WHO HISTORY!!!

Overall I really enjoyed this episode, not my favorite season finale, but definitely a good one. And I loved that the mystery of Clara is solved, but hate that about ten fucking million more were thrown out. But it's good, BBC is clever. Now all this Whovian can do is wait and wish and hope for what's to come in the 50th Anniversary Special.

Fin.

-Keshia

The Problem of Being Twenty and Being Me

At eight years old I thought I would have done more with my life by now. At eleven years I thought I would've had some things figured out by now. At fifteen I thought I would have made some people proud by now, proud of something that mattered. And now at twenty, I'm just confused. There was a common pattern in my life, one where I have always no matter what, expected more of myself. However it seems as the years have gone on my expectations have only risen higher while the effort I put in has decreased.

The problem in being me is that I like to say that I'm hardworking, that I'm going to make something of myself, that I'm not just going to go through my life. I'm going to really live, right? But then I do nothing. I just don't. So Keshia's the quite hypocrite, right? Who would have known? But it's hard, because I really believe I'm this strong willed, determined person. I really believe that I'm this person who can do things. But I can't. And it depresses me. It makes me feel horrible how little I can actually do and how much I should've have actually gotten done.

And I know there are people out there shouting, 'For God's sake, you're only twenty, give yourself a break!' But I don't hear that. I hear how pathetic it sounds, the 'only twenty' part. Yes, I am only twenty years old; I haven't even lived on this planet for a quarter of a century. But that's just it to me; people who do great things are young. Most of the time these things are so great because people did them, they accomplished these things when they were 'only just' something.

The thing is, there was a time two years ago when I had several people calling me inspiring. And my whole time, I was like, what the hell for? And if I had to consider it someway I guess I was 'inspiring' (even though I am not in the least bit) because of the things I was going to do. But guess what, its two years down the line and what have I done? What have I done? Nothing. And some of those people, those same people who called me inspiring, they have accomplished great things. They've become great, and I'm lucky if I even manage to pull myself out of my bed with a positive attitude.

You see this is what I'm scared of. I'm scared of waking up seventy-five years old someday and wondering where my life went, wondering why I haven't done something significant. And the only thing I can think, that older Keshia in her bed can think of, is because she didn't do it while she was 'only just'. She had her window, she saw how it looked. There was a field full of flowers, all dancing in a wind that she could not feel. The sky was dark but bright at the same time. There were all these multicolored stars, dancing and rearranging themselves in the night sky. She looked out the window and she didn't go out there. She just stared and stared and eventually all the flowers died, all the stars stopped dancing, and the window closed.

Fin.

-Keshia

A Thousand Splendid Suns

"Of all the hardships a person had to face, none was more punishing than the simple act of waiting…"

A Thousand Splendid Suns is a beautiful story that is part historical fiction, part social commentary, but really, all wonderful. Through the stories of Mariam and Laila, the last thirty years of Afghanistan are projected and see in a way more intimately than you could ever get from reading an article on the matter. The story is one of life and heartbreak in an unforgiving time. But above all the story is one of companionship, a companionship that breaks through the tide of generations and forms through a mutual understanding of pain and tragedy.

I think Khaled Hosseini did a beautiful job of painting the struggles of these two Afghan women, and gave the situation more perspective than you would have seen before. The politics were touched on, however, the real demonstration with them were the true effects the politics had on human life. Mariam and Laila both start the story at a young age, a whole generation apart, but growing in a world that in practically imploding on itself everyday. This fact, along with the sudden and rough thrusting out of a world they knew and loved, is what Mariam and Laila hold in common. And the marriage to a wretched husband by both only strengthens it.

All the characters in this book were written well. Mariam was a silent pillar of strength, a woman who despite her best efforts became quite like her own Nana, but who showed the most endurance to the end. He story, her evolution, interests me more than all. At the start of the story she is nothing but a young, naive girl pitted with the name of harami, a bastard. And by the end, with the "war", what the life she lived turned her into, is something both beautiful and terrifying to read. Then there Liala too, the passionate and sometimes hotheaded, girl. She grows up far too fast, her story cut in half when compared to Mariam's, but all the same it engrains deep changes on her that she could've never predicted. Liala is the girl forced to grow up too soon. But her strength was admirable, the tenderness for her daughter incredible, and the love she has for Tariq wonderful. The character of Rasheed, the horrendous man to whom they are both married, was well written. I came to despise him, as I feel you should with characters such as him. But in being written well, he was complex, someone who I wanted to understand even in his worst moments. Then there were the 'Soviets', the 'warlords', the 'Taliban', and the 'Americans', all of these characters who weren't even characters at all. And yet they were always there and always present, playing with a game with some Godlike hand, giving the characters spare bits of hope here and there, only to slap them in the face when they grab for it.

This story was wonderful. It had my emotions all mixed up, I hope so deeply for the characters. I winced at their pain, became angry at their oppressors, and cried in all the deaths. It was moving beyond anything else, that is was just a story of life, but one so complex and admonishing that it's hard to think that while this is a work of fiction it probably is an accurate representation of the lives that people had to live. And that's what so beautiful about this novel, and so hard too.

Fin.

-Keshia

*This is the exact same review I posted on my Goodreads Account, but I've decided I'm going to start sharing these in my blogs as well*

Pieces of Perfection

I think and internal journey for everyone has to be one towards perfection. Almost all human beings, in general, have this push factor to us where we strive for perfection with our every labored breath. Then there are other for whom the word 'motivation' doesn't even penetrate the thick walls of their being. Think about it in this way, because I think about it a lot. Are you happy with the person you were before? Are you happy as the person you are now? Do you think you will be happy with the person you hope to be in the future?

Most people, I think, will answer no to the first one. It's kind of a general rule that people generally get better with age, knowledge, experience, and etc…But we also lose parts of ourselves as we go on. There are good, amazing parts to us that life either forces us to leave behind and forget about. And while, like I said before, I think most people will say they don't want to return to the person they were in the past--they don't mean that to its full extent. Because think about it, think about the way the corners of someone lips tug up into a smile when they think about a memory, think about the dazzle in their eye when they look at a younger picture of themselves. "Look at how cute I was then, and look at me now," they'll tell you, clinging on to the pictures of the past.

And then there's the you that you are now. Do you know, there is no one around who is youer than you? That last sentence all goes in credit to Dr. Suess. But it is true, you know? But do you like yourself? My guilty conscious reveals, hey, I really don't myself. I try, and there is so much to improve upon, so much I could be better at. I spend way too much of my time thinking about how pathetic I am. And I know it's bad and horrible and thinking about how bad and horrible it is only makes me feel even more pathetic. It's kind of like this eternal self hating maze to be stuck in. And so, you don't like yourself, change yourself, right? It's really not that easy. And I always feel always on the brink of perfection. And I'm too Gatsby crazy at the moment. So think of it like the Green light, Gatsby can never really reach it. But he's right on the edge of almost reaching it, or so he feels it.

And the future self. The one I'm sure is flowing with perfection. The one who is in your mind the one who has everything worked out. This is the one you're going to be, right? But when? That's the relevant question.

I think in small ways that pieces of ourselves are left scattered across all of our time, all of our time, from start to finish. The you from before, now, and then. And there's too much changing with being a human being. You can only perfection if you catch all the pieces all over the place. But that's the thing right, the human life is more of a line than a circle, you can't loop back to the past and pick the pieces up you left behind nor can you drive forward and snatch the ones there. You have to go forward, trying to gather the pieces. And I'm telling you, there are far too many to hold. What again, if perfection anyways.

Fin.

-Keshia

The Great Gatsby

So, The Great Gatsby, what did you think of it old sport?

So I think I am now in the right mind to give a proper judgment to the newest version of The Great Gatsby. I have now seen the movie twice and am almost to the point where I am not overwhelmed by feels….almost. The hardest part, though, is giving one of these things without giving spoilers. Spoilers are such inane little things, particularly when it comes to reviews. Such as I can be like, "It was incredible!" But if you asked me why I probably couldn't tell you easily because the reasons why I like things are spoilers! Does that make sense? It's frustrating. But alas, I am trying. I really think that it’s a soft spot I need to harden up in my writing skills, how to explain things without really explaining them, you see? So here it is--my general overview of The Great Gatsby.

So first off, it was incredible; oen of the best book to movie adaptations I have ever seen and believe me when I say I've seen a whole lot of them. What captured me right off was the cinematography; it took the story above and beyond what I could have ever imagined in the book. The Gatsby parties were amazing, full or colors and pizzazz, and the houses in the film were just breathtaking. Gatsby's place itself was so grand, like the castle I always imagined living in as I grew up. The acting was superb in all parts, but particularly in Gatsby and…wait for it…John Buchanan. Leo stole my heart in this film, as he does in everything, and his portrayal of Gatsby was beautiful, because I was literally in tears for the last fifteen minutes of the film, on both occasions that I watched it. But Joel Edgerton, the actor who played Tom, really impressed me. He just became Tom, and in that I mean his acting made me despise his character in every single way possible, even more than in the book. And the soundtrack, the soundtrack to the film was incredible. I have literally become obsessed with it; the music put soul and feel to the film. And yes there was rap music; hardly a single piece in the whole film was related to the true sense of the 20's at all. But it really fit well, and it's hard to describe without revealing spoilers. But believe me when I say, it has been several years since I've heard a soundtrack pair so well with a film.  The rest of the production, the costuming, the makeup, the script, were all flawlessly done. It kept true to the book for the most part and what little changes they did make only enhanced the story, not took away from it. In a way I can understand some of the bad reviews, as Gatsby currently sits at a 49% on Rotten Tomatoes. But at the same time I don't understand them. People who are fans of the book, who are fans of the true heart of Gatsby, and believe in the hope of the green light, will enjoy this film. People who look towards this as an expectation of boring, don't see the true breadth and concept of this film, will not like it. It's a simple story really, a story of a very hopeful man.

EDIT: I did have a whole other section to this one, one that contained spoilers; I decided to cut it out. Limited writing will train me up.

Fin.

-Keshia

Are You Really?

As of late I've been having these moments where I think too much about my life. It's kind of like this. I always think, you're twenty years old, and what the fuck have you done? I amaze myself in my hypocritical ways all the time. I tell people I don't want just an ordinary life. Like really, my longtime goals are not to settle for normalcy at all.  I like to imagine myself as Belle from Beauty and the Beast a lot, you know the whole "I want adventure in the great wide somewhere" line? But what do you do Keshia? You get up and go to school, making A's in your classes and pretend it's something to be proud of. You work at a job where people probably don't really care for you. And you spend the rest of your time lost on the internet or in a book or in your writing. But do you really do anything?

It's all because of this. I have a bad habit of re-reading my old journals and thinking about what a little shit I was when I was younger. Sometimes I wish so badly to go back in time and just let myself know some of the things I know now. Maybe it would have fixed everything, made things so much easier for me. Or maybe it would have made things harder, made me too scared to live. The common theme, though, no matter what I think the results would be, are that I somehow contact my younger self. But what if it was the other way around. What if my younger self somehow got in contact with my older self? Imagine if fourteen year old me suddenly came across the journal of my twenty year old self? Would she be proud? I really think the answer is no. The person I was when I was fourteen is exponentially different than the person I am now. Hell, even the person I am from last year is exponentially different from the person I am know. And it's hard for outside people to see, I guess, but despite always being full of questions, I know a lot about how I am. And I know how different I am now. The thing about being a human being, every second of everyday you are a different person than the one you were before. Not just in thought, because every second, every thought is different, but even in body too. You take a different breathe; your heart beats a different beat. Everything is different. And time goes on. And there has never been a way made, not one, where you can contact your older or younger self. And everything is different, it really is. And I just can't imagine. If I had the chance to go back in time I know the exact speech I could give to my younger self. But as for what my younger self what say tot he me now, to what she would even think? I have no clue. 

Fin.

-Keshia

Spinning.

So it was like I got really tired, and there were finals, and moving...and I'm still not completely moved in yet, but yeah I just didn't want to blog for the rest of April so I chose not to. Does that make any sense at all? I failed my BEDA goal. Woohoo!! And that is that and now it's May. 

So do you think about life sometimes, and how odd and strange and unlikely things are? I mean, that doesn't really make sense right. With people it is harder too. Can you imagine how someone who is so important to you today can become so easily ignored with just the passing of time? And sometimes it's not on purpose, because things happen and people have to leave.

There have been a lot of people in my life, people who I was once close with that I have lost touch with. There was the Vietnamese boy from elementary school whose named I can't remember, who told me he was going to marry me in kindergarten, and who I remained friends with till fifth grade when he moved to a different state. I'd like to meet him again one day, see how he is, and see if he ever came out--because the whole marry me thing faded quick enough, and it was quite obvious the reasoning was in him being homosexual. He left his school jacket behind in the classroom; I took it and kept it for a while. But eventually, just like him, I lost it. Then there's my best friend from fifth grade, Josephine, who I went as far as calling strangers in the phone book with the same last name as her to find her. She was my first real best friend, or least someone who I consider today as the real concept of best friend, not someone who I knew for a few days and claimed was my best friend. Josephine and I had a real connection. And the phone number thing worked, I got in contact with her cousin who gave me her phone number. And for a bit we got close again, despite living an hour and half away. We even had sleepovers and she came to my thirteenth birthday party with my new middle school friends, and we hung out at this same place called 'The Mug' sometimes. But it didn't work that much. Also in middle school there was Abbey, who I knew from Church, who was the only other young girl in the choir with me. We would hang out in the nursery on Wednesday nights, even though we were much too old, and would listen to Alex (three years older than us) ramble about his girl problems and ask for advice. But eventually she stopped coming to church, and like that, I lost her.

There was Christy too, the one I've probably missed more than anyone. Christy and her sister Carrie were in the foster program, and they were fostered by an older couple in my church. For the roughly half year that she and her sister were with them I became very close to her. I learned about her life, about how she hated the foster system because she could never have a real family in that way. People were always set to give her up, and since she was older no one wanted to adopt her or her sister. She really inspired me, a lot. Because one of my goals in life is to eventually adopt someone, but someone who is older, not a toddler or baby like everyone wants. One reason being that I don't particularly enjoy small children and the other being that I want to give someone a family, someone like Christy. Someone who deserves a family, because I just find it horrible that children in the foster system are thrown into the streets if they don't get adopted by a certain age. I think everyone deserves to at least have a family. And Christy taught me that, and I really miss her. 

Then in high school there was Marcelo, wonderful, beautiful Marcelo. The Brazilian boy who gave more confidence than perhaps anyone in my life. He always told me I was beautiful, he always told me I could do whatever I wanted too. He was at Bryant on a foreign exchange program and the night he left was one of the saddest of my lives. I wrote him this letter, something I wanted him to wait to read later on the plane but he didn't, he read it right there in front of me. And I was crying and he cried too, and he hugged me and told me I was beautiful and that he loved me. And it really was one of the hardest goodbyes ever (the hardest actually being Marina pre-Washington). For about a year afterwards we stayed in contact over email, but eventually, like all else, it faded. And it makes me sad, because no one has ever really made me feel as good about myself as he has. In high school too there was Kelia, someone who became one of my closest friends in my sophomore year. She wanted to be a writer too and we used to share stories. No one in my life has ever supported my writing as much as she did. She was the first person to ever really care about my writing, and I hope I did the same for her. The last thing of hers I read before she moved away was this story about a blind girl, a story that I would love to read now, see what she had made it become. Part of my sophomore year was a really, really hard part of my life. The best things that Kelia ever did for me was take care of me, particularly on this one certain day. I was usually so good at hiding my emotions in school, but Kelia saw that day, saw how much I was hurting and she asked the teacher if I could be excused and she as well. And she just took me to the bathroom and let me cry it out; she was really there for me. 

Life is kind of like this spinning cycle, people are thrown in it, and sometimes the spinning sucks them down the vertex, down and gone. And it hurts sometimes, because life spins faster when certain people are there, certain good and brilliant people. And sometimes it's slower, with harder people and harder things. But I think in little ways we have the ability to slow it down or speed it up, one of them being cherishing the people we have, and remembering that one day they may be gone.

Fin.

-Keshia