MTV VMA's 2011

The annual who gives a shit anymore awards. When i was a kid, one of my favorite nights of the year was the MTV VMA's, but the last few years, the show has become fucking boring, the nominees don't make sense, the winners suck, and no one attends.
This year, the videos nominated are a special kind of bad.
VIDEO OF THE YEAR:
-Rolling in the Deep - Adele
-Make Some Noise - Beastie Boys
-Grenade - Bruno Mars
-Firework - Katy Perry
-Yonkers - Tyler, The Creator

If Adele doesn't win this, i'm never watching the VMA's again!

Herbert Winful---Organizer of the Nonlinear Optics at 50, a symposium at univ. of Michigan in Oct.

I noticed Professor Winful because he is one of the two African Americans present in the meeting room. I thought to myself, wow, this is worse than women. Out of the around 150 particiants, there are about 10 women there.

Yesterday the chair announce that there will be a symposium at the Unvi. Of Michigan celebrating the 50th anniversary of the birth of NLO. He said for more details, please contact Professor Winful.

I got a flyer during the poster session from Professor Winful. I was in a hurry trying to look through all the posters and take pictures so I didn’t talk to him much.

Later I googled him and found out that he is a professor at Univ. of Michigan doing research in the area of fiber optics. He is also featured as one of the “Laser Pioneers” at the LaserFest website. I found out that he's had an interest in lasers since he was a child. He won a lot of awards and “When not pondering theoretical problems in laser science, Winful likes to relax at the piano, playing the music of Bach, Chopin, and Brahms." "It is my greatest joy, next to my work."

For more information on the symposium please contact him.

In the Castle Grounds...

As promised here are the photos from inside the Castle grounds, it is such an enchanting yet spooky place! I would really recommend visiting a castle!

I love how chalk and cheese me and Lucia look in these photo's and yet we get on so well. Seems opposites do attract! Go check out her blog for more of her outfit - which of course rocked! I love how she styles her one sleeve dress with an awesome tee over top! 

Im looking forward to doing more blogger meet ups in the future, I think it would be so nice to meet all the local bloggers! Have any of you met up with other bloggers?

Remember to enter my LUXLA GIVEAWAY!! 

No, I am not an OSA staff

There is someone who asked me: do they let you come to the conference for blogging? Are you OSA staff?

I said: no, my talk is accepted then I volunteer to be the blogger. The order is very important.

You may wonder why I want to do this. True, I want to go to most of the talks. Some of the talks run in parallel session I wish I could be at both of them. I have a family which I want to spend time with. The responsibility of writing blog is constantly on my mind, which adds some extra stress to the trip. And last I have to get up sometimes 4am in the morning writing in the bathroom so that I don’t wake up my kids.

I myself don’t know why I want to do this. But on the way here someone left a recent issue of the New Yorker on the plane. I read an excellent article “A woman’s place, can Sheryl Sandberg upend silicon valley’s male-dominated culture?” by Ken Auletta. It is so interesting that I read the 9 page article all at once.

Sandberg was vice president for global on line sales at Google before she joined Facebook. Three years after she joined, Facebook is profitable.

In the article, Ken Auletta writes:

"Last December, Sandberg spoke at the TEDWomen conference. Her black hair framed her was young. Sandberg began by celebrating the progress women have made: “For any of us in this room today, let’s start out by admitting we’re lucky. We don’t live in the world our mothers lived in, our grandmothers lived in, where career choices for women were so limited.” More women than men graduate from college and graduate school, and receive doctoral degrees. Yet, she went on, “women are not making it to the top. A hundred and ninety heads of state; nine are women. Of all the people in parliament in the world, thirteen per cent are women. In the corporate sector, women at the top—C-level jobs, board seats—tops out at fifteen, sixteen per cent.”

To solve this problem, she proposed doing three things. First, she said, women need to “sit at the table.” She said that fifty-seven per cent of men entering the workforce negotiate their salaries, but that only seven per cent of women do likewise. Second, at home, “make sure your partner is a real partner.” On average, she said, women do two-thirds of the housework and three-fourths of the child care. And, finally, “don’t leave before you leave.” When a woman starts thinking of having children, “she doesn’t raise her hand anymore. . . . She starts leaning back.” In other words, if women don’t get the job they want before they take a break to have children, they often don’t come back. "

I don’t want to lean back. I am still trying to move forward with my very limited working time. Maybe that’s the reason why I want to do this despite all the trouble.

Bollywood Cute Girl Sonam Kapoor Wallpapers

Writing When Words Aren't Enough

Or at least when they don't feel like enough. Sometimes there are things I just don't know how one could adequately capture in words, and maybe it just isn't possible. But I don't want to leave it at that. I really do think words have the power to be the most powerful and most lasting medium, and I want to take them absolutely as far as they can go. If that means looking at what other mediums have to offer, then by all means I say let's look.

I don't know how many of you watch So You Think You Can Dance, but although I've been thinking about this subject for a long time, years even, it's this show that's finally made up my mind to write about it. See, to me dance is one of those things where it seems like words aren't enough. I live for those moments of being blown away, and every once in a while this show will do that. Especially choreographers like Mia Michaels or Travis Wall, who create the most incredible characters and stories. But like I said, I don't want to leave it there. It may seem like we can't do in words what they do in dance, but how true is that? Last night Twitch and Sasha gave one of the greatest SYTYCD performances of all time, and let's take their dance as an example. How would you tell this story in words?



Does anyone have the guts to try? I would love to see what you come up with. But really though, how would you put this scene into words? How can you really capture the pulse of movement when she slaps the table in the beginning? Or the jaw-droppingness when she flips up into the back bend and he pushes her the rest of the way? Or the way he touches her face when he carries her off at the end?

The basic truth here, though, plain and simple, is that we're dealing with two different mediums, and that one medium does one thing and the other does something else. They each have pros and cons. Yes, dance is more visceral, but writing could give these two characters back story and depth and complexity. But how can we take the best of dance and use it in writing? Is language itself raw and visceral enough? How do we take the rhythm and musicality and athleticism and passion of this dance and transfer it to the medium of words? I don't think its possible to successfully transfer from one medium to any other 100%, but still. How do we try?

What do you think?

Sarah Allen

Harry Potter - Count the Closeup Wallpapers

Harry Potter - Count the Closeup Wallpapers