Books, The Other Stuff

Holden Caulfield Answers the Sunshine Blogger Award (Exploring What Makes a Favorite Character)

VS 2Answers coming from both myself and The Catcher in the Rye’s Holden Caulfield in this post!

Thanks so much to Nicole at Sorry I’m Booked for the Sunshine Blogger Award nomination! I’m very honored that such a fun blogger enjoys my blog!

As I was writing out my answers to her questions, I started wondering how some of my favorite book characters would answer the very same questions…so I decided to share one character’s (imagined) answers alongside my own! J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye may have actually recently overtaken Wuthering Heights as my favorite book (gasp), so I was curious as to how Holden Caulfield, the narrator of the story, might answer these questions. He’s one of my favorite book characters, but would our answers be similar or different?

Some of Holden’s answers I drew directly from the book, but some I imagined based on his personality. Here are the results, with both of our answers:  Continue reading “Holden Caulfield Answers the Sunshine Blogger Award (Exploring What Makes a Favorite Character)”

Comics: ARRRiel the Pirate Mermaid, The Other Stuff

Create-Your-Own-Comics: ARRiel the Pirate Mermaid and the Trampoline to Space

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You’ve waited a long time. You’ve lost sleep in anticipation, in fact. But now, FINALLY, ARRRiel the Pirate Mermaid is back with some new adventures (featuring my *cough* super impressive drawing skills).

Previously on ARRiel the Pirate Mermaid, ARRiel met a dinosaur and they sailed off into the sunset.

Now for their next adventure: Continue reading “Create-Your-Own-Comics: ARRiel the Pirate Mermaid and the Trampoline to Space”

Music, The Other Stuff

Thanksgiving Music

(Because it does exist.)

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Even though the day has passed, I’m still reminded of how much I can be thankful for my family, my friends, to everyone who has supported and continues to support me, and the ability to support myself and study at Northwestern. While it’s all to easy to lose perspective I am truly, deeply grateful.

So in the spirit of continued thankfulness here’s a song specifically about Thanksgiving as sung by Josh Groban. Enjoy!

The Other Stuff

The Most Amazing and Bizarre Public Domain Images…

This morning I was browsing Pixabay’s collection of public domain images to make my class PowerPoint presentation a little more fun. While I did find some useful pictures to help break up the text for my project, I also found some truly hilarious and weird photos that were too good not to share. Enjoy:

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I’m not entirely sure what this is or what made someone think to create it but I’m Continue reading “The Most Amazing and Bizarre Public Domain Images…”

Music, The Other Stuff

Unique Music Associations (Plus Bacon and Cotton Eye Joe)

Otherwise known as what happened last week.

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(Bacon…)

This past week has been kind of a weird one in terms of things I’ve thought about or done, so I thought I’d list them out. (If anyone’s doing cognitive research on weird brains this is the post for you.) Continue reading “Unique Music Associations (Plus Bacon and Cotton Eye Joe)”

The Other Stuff

Dinosaur Sweaters and Riding Polar Bears (i.e. The Mystery Blogger Award)

img_5090First, I want to give a shout out to all of my readers, especially those who return again and again to my blog to read and interact with my posts. Lately I’ve been struggling to keep up with my own blogging and especially with reading others’ posts as I’ve been adjusting to Ph.D. life, so I appreciate your patience and support as I find a new blogging schedule that will get me back on track. I’ve also been having some ideas for future posts and post series that I’m really excited about and that are in the works, so I’m looking forward to sharing those with you soon, as well!

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Last week I was incredibly honored to be nominated for the Mystery Blogger Award by Michael Miller over at My Comic Relief. While Continue reading “Dinosaur Sweaters and Riding Polar Bears (i.e. The Mystery Blogger Award)”

Books, The Other Stuff

5 (More) Literary Mashups That Totally Need to Happen

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When I stumbled across a post I made a while back called  Top 5 Literary Mash-Ups That Totally Need to Happen I thought…why not? So without further ado, here are five more that should also definitely happen: Continue reading “5 (More) Literary Mashups That Totally Need to Happen”

Comics: ARRRiel the Pirate Mermaid, The Other Stuff

ARRiel the Pirate Mermaid Comic…Part 2

(Originally brought to you by the Create-Your-Own Comic Book and back by popular demand)

Previously on ARRiel the Pirate Mermaid…

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We left ARRiel on quite the cliffhanger…what would she do? Would the dinosaur eat her? Would they become friends? Would she get a hair cut???

The wait is over.

You’re welcome. Continue reading “ARRiel the Pirate Mermaid Comic…Part 2”

Music, The Other Stuff

Looking for the Author’s Meaning (Or How I Pranked My Creative Writing Class)

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What happens when a book, song, or piece of art is given a title that has seemingly nothing to do with the work itself? Or when something inside the work just doesn’t seem to align with the rest of it?

Apparently, our brains naturally try to connect the dots. We’ll Continue reading “Looking for the Author’s Meaning (Or How I Pranked My Creative Writing Class)”

The Other Stuff

Moving Into An Apartment (As Told By “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”)

the-man-from-u-n-c-l-eOver the past week, I moved into my very first apartment. With about a week and a half left now before I officially start the the PhD program in music theory and cognition at Northwestern University, I have a Continue reading “Moving Into An Apartment (As Told By “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”)”