"I think everybody should like everybody"

This weekend we went to see the AGO's new exhibit - Andy Warhol, Supernova: Stars, Death and Disasters 1962-1964. Conclusion of the day: Andy Warhol was a very very strange man.

Other than the general conclusion that "Andy Warhol was really weird", I did manage to retain a few sayings (such as the eloquent title of this blog entry) that I liked: "Art is what you can get away with" "The idea of waiting for something makes it more exciting"

To start from the beginning
In my untrained artistic view, the exhibit was extremely well done, thanks to the curator David Cronenberg. By this, I mean that it wasn't just random walking around staring at stuff and saying "I like these colours better than those over there" or "this one's pretty" - which I like to do, but I'm guessing isn't exactly the intended art gallery experience. The Andy exhibit was really very interesting, because it was set up with free audio guides* forcing the viewer to actually listen and learn. This poses a problem for those people with ADD, like my dad, who was done with the entire exhibit in five minutes. But for the rest of the world...it's a great idea. Cronenberg, through the audio guide, was able to verbalize his reasononing behind the arrangement of the exhibit and to place the art into context - to bring art history to the mainstream uneducated public (I'm speaking about myself here).

*audio guides are those telephone-like things that you can pay excessive prices for at art galleries to get a play-by-play commentary on specific pieces of art. I'm an expert with audio guides since my trip to Spain aka art-gallery-heaven.

My interpretation
Since I've been rambling on about how much I've learnt, I thought I should at least write a little bit about it. So what did I learn about Andy Warhol in the two hours I spent there? In this short period of time, a lot of what he did revolved around the theme of the media and how people gain fame. He was obsessed (or so it seems) with what brought people into the public eye. On one hand, he examined celebrity fame and Hollywood as a mass-production of cookie cutter movie stars. On the other, he also looked at tragedy as a vehicle for fame - how someone who dies in a horrible accident will get their picture in the daily news, just like the Hollywood actor/actress. He looked at the intersection of tragedy and fame - according to the handy audio guide, he was pretty well obsessed with observing and trying to recreate Jackie Kennedy and Elizabeth Taylor as prime examples of these themes. It was interesting to say the least (to make a long story short). Something you definitely have to see for yourself to fully appreciate.

The aftermath
I'm inspired! This tragically happens without fail after visiting an art gallery - the teensy wanna-be artist within me emerges and I start a new painting. Seeing as recently a painting I did for my mother met an untimely end, I'm starting work on a new one for her. So far, we've decided on a general Indian theme. I will keep the blog updated with any progress ;)

What's your jungian typology?

Since the INFJ designation was recently mentioned in a comment, I thought I should write a little entry about the Jungian typology quiz that I put a link to on the sidebar (see "Interesting pages").

An introduction to Reena
Because I haven't really put anything "About me" on this page, other than the daily rantings of an overworked student, I thought this might be a nice sort of introduction. I'm shamelessly promoting this test because it was oddly accurate...believe it or not, but it's worth a try. What did I turn out to be, you may ask? Apparently I am an INFJ: Introverted Intuitive Feeling Judging. What that really means, who knows, but here are a few main points about us INFJ's...

• INFJs are gentle, caring, complex and highly intuitive individuals. Artistic and creative, they live in a world of hidden meanings and possibilities.
  
• Only one percent of the population has an INFJ Personality Type, making it the most rare of all the types*
  
• On the other hand, INFJs operate within themselves on an intuitive basis which is entirely spontaneous. They know things intuitively, without being able to pinpoint why, and without detailed knowledge of the subject at hand. They are usually right**, and they usually know it.
• INFJs are concerned for people's feelings, and try to be gentle to avoid hurting anyone. They are very sensitive to conflict, and cannot tolerate it very well***
• INFJ is a perfectionist who doubts that they are living up to their full potential. INFJs are rarely at complete peace with themselves - there's always something else they should be doing to improve themselves and the world around them.
• They have a natural affinity for art, and many excel in the sciences, where they make use of their intuition.****

*yay! we're unique
**hee hee. I love this description. So accurate.
***unfortunately yes. Sympathetic response / "flight or flight" kicks in at the smell of conflict...bleh.
****'tis true! see the rest of this page as evidence.

So, I think four asterisks is enough. If you haven't learnt enough about INFJ's, check out these links below: (you can also go to them to learn more about YOUR jungian typology after you do the quiz)

1. The INFJ
2. INFJ relationships
3. INFJ & careers

If anyone actually does this quiz, and finds anything freakishly similar/completely different, feel free to post a comment and let me know. I was impressed, but I would like to know what other people find :)

ser·en·dip·i·ty

Function: noun
: the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for

On a recent trip to the big apple with some friends, we visited a quaint little dessert place called Serendipity 3. Well, it definitely had potential to be quaint; if not for the extremely snobby maitre'd and the hoards of people crowded into the teensy entrance way. Serendipity 3 earned it's fame from a promotion on Oprah's favourite things (of course. We're talking about the ultimate American power here), and a movie from 2001 starring Kate Beckinsale and John Cusack.

So tonight I finally watched the movie, and it is the cutest movie ever made in the world. It makes you (well, it made me) believe completely in fate, destiny, soul mates and love. Move over, cynics. If you ever need a cheer-me-up, warm fuzzy feelings type movie, this is definitely it!

poster day

Today was the poster competition day at St.Micheal's for the summer student research - exciting, exciting. For those of you that are starting to tune out, I've added some pretty pictures below to keep you hooked (ah, what a blogger will do for someone to read their post).

blood, sweat & tears
So you may think, "poster competition"...psssh. Nothing big. WELL, think again! This single day embodied the culmination of many painstaking hours of stressing over experiments, data, formatting (involving death threats to the makers of powerpoint and excel); and reading hugemongeous stacks of papers to make sure that we are fully knowledgable about our topics.

Basically, a lot of work.

Judgement time
The actually judging process itself was a disappointment - the judge didn't ask any substantial questions which would've involved actual knowledge/thinking, and he only listened to my presentation for a couple minutes. But, overall it was a pretty interesting day! It was my first poster presentation, and I really liked talking to the other people that came around to ask questions and challenge you defend your project. There were ideas that came up that we never would've thought of, from people who specialize in other fields and can approach the project from a different angle.

Okay, okay...I will restrain myself from ranting about lab work. One last comment: I am excited for (and proud of!) a couple people in our lab, who made it to the final judging round, and are up for recieving one of four $300 prizes available to the winners! Go ICAM-1!

pictures as promised: around the lab

A night of beautiful people

It's ironic that now I live in Oakville, I spend more time going out in Toronto - but a great change, nonetheless! So here's the re-cap: (I don't go out that often, it deserves a blog entry to itself)

Hemingway's
We arrived in Yorkville at 5:30 pm. Why reservations were made so early, I do not know. It was like being on a flight - sitting in the same squished chair for 6 hours, and getting up only to use the bathroom. But minus the peanuts, and plus some friends of course :) So, after living a few small blocks away from this bar for about 5 years, I finally end up going. It was tons of fun (the reason why we ended up staying for SO LONG!), I can't say much about the bar itself (or the food, which was pretty bad) but it was just amazing being on a patio in the summer. Notably, it was filled with beautiful people in pretty clothes. This was just the beginning.

This is London
The next stop on the night of partying! We were pretty tired at this point, around 11:30pm. But deciding that we are definitely too young to go home (positive thinking), we all made our way out to one club or another. Myself and two girlfriends decided to visit This is London - one of my friends "knew someone" (as everyone seems to do), so we were able to get in minus the waiting and the $20 cover.
Seriously, this club is beautiful. Gorgeous. Along with the awesome decor and glass chandeliers, they had topless men serving fruit-kabobs (do I need to mention that they were also beautiful), and some barbie-like girl reclined on a lounge-chair by the entrance. I'm not going to describe the bathroom, except to say that it was extravagently beautiful (like everything else). WELL, I guess we know where the $20 cover goes! It is spent well. A beautiful place, with tons of beautiful people.

With a touch of class
All in all, I must say it was the most classy and fun night I've had in toronto in a while. Who knew that the city could be so...pretty :) Definitely ironic that I have to move out of the city to have the time to enjoy it, but hopefully this new city-exploring will continue in September.

Sisi and Dmitri were voted off?!

Ah, the injustice of "reality" television.

I must confess I have a secret love - Wednesday night television. After a day of tense anticipation, excitingly enough, comes So you think you can dance.

I was first introduced to this show by Eugenie (my St.Mike's co-worker), so I have her to thank for fostering this bordering-on-insane obsession. Well anyways, this show rocks. I love dancing (but I think I might just suck at it) so I live vicariously through the people on this show. This season, there are a few absolutely amazing dancers. Notably, there is an extremely good looking ballroom/latin dancer: Dmitry. There are really no words to describe him, you've got to see it for yourself...

note: sadly, the video had to be removed due to the network and something about reproduction without permission...pshh. alas, no more "so you think you can dance" on youtube! :(

The excitement doesn't end there! Next comes Canada's next top model. It's actually kind of sad that we couldn't find anyone really fitting to be a model. It ended up being Canada's attempt to copy the US show. The second injustice of Wednesday night television also occured this week, when the ONE and ONLY person on the show that looked like a model was VOTED OFF! This random anorexic girl named Andrea ended up winning. See Court's blog for more ranting about this.

Unsuccessful in the past to keep up with the endless updating demanded of a 'good' blogger, I have tried and failed at this so-called blogging. So here I am again, with some of the rationale behind this second attempt at nothing:

1. My inner geek misses having a website.

2. I have been provoked by certain people with the challenge of keeping a non-boring blog.

3. Court was recently crowned "blog-queen" and I feel the need to be royalty as well (refer to title)

4. I like to talk a lot and I think people at work are going insane.
Therefore, I obviously would like to extend this insanity to the online community as well.

5. Lastly, I believe that I am brilliant and fascinating (at least online), and therefore have the right to rant about my life in this little space.

I hope you all enjoy! :)