So...what do you do for a living?

[KunJinky]

I took a forensic class once.
One class we sat around and watch eps of Quincy and called bs on stuff that was wrong in the show.
Handwritting analysis to see who's abscence excuse letters were fake.
Then came the crime scene slides. O_o

[Vlastokov]

Omg, I love literature. You ever read Mark Twain's The Mysterious Stranger. That has to be my favorite book of all time. Apparently he wrote it near the end of his life. This was after his wife was murdered and kids died, and became a recluse, feeling depressed and misanthropic.

[Xandra Kitee]

No, I haven't read it. I tried Tom Sawyer when I was young but that's all. I don't think you can possibly be as much interested in french and slavian litteratures as me so... Let's say that in english, I mostly fancy poets, I worship Shakespeare, the Brontë(s), Irving, Auster and I think Faulkner should be studied in english classes as soon as possible instead of those crappy texts they give to (french) kids.

[Vlastokov]

Lol, Tom Sawyer is a completely different style of story for Mark Twain. I find it sad that everything thinks of that story when they hear his name. I didn't like Tom Sawyer at all. I thought it was boring. In Mysterious Stranger, he attacks society, organized religion, and the human mind in a nice little story, with a very strange twist of an ending.

Well, you can never go wrong with Shakespeare. I can't say I'm too much into poetry, but I realy did love Shakespeare's love sonnets. I believe my favorite was 109.

[uchihashinobi]

As for murder stories... most of all, I put my pride in it. Ten years ago, a litterature teacher of mine told us that everything has been done in murder stories except for ONE thing : the reader is the murderer. Ever since, it's been bugging me big time. I just can't think about another "configuration". Since I suck too much in science to defeat forensic, I decided that I have to find a way that would not sound lame. :x

The reader being the murderer...wow never thought of that, that would be quite interesting. I actually have an idea about how you could do that....mabye make it so that the reader thinks they are reading a diary of sorts, make them believe that everything they are reading is about someone else....in the end they discover they are reading their own journal, which has been found and published somehow. Something like that mabye? But you probably thought of all those types of things, hmmm quite obvious actually. Well if you ever do decide to incorporate forensics you could always use me as a source of info.... I would be glad to help.

[Xandra Kitee]

Wow. I feel a sudden urge to try something now. But that means I'll have to translate it or maybe write it directly in english. It'd be the first time. Fun, fun fun. ^^

@Vlastokov : well, I was 10 or 11 so I picked up what was available for kids. And I didn't finish it cause I didn't liked it. But I had a passion for Jack London and I really liked J.F. Cooper and Melville.

I never gave it a lot of thoughts before but now that you asked me I realize that I've read quite a lot of major american authors. Anyway, my most favourite would be Nabokov. But I've never really thought of him as being an american writer. Nabokov's not so simple.

[Vlastokov]

Nabokov was a russian American novelist, or something like that. I've only heard of him, but ahven't read any of his work. I'm actually a bit ashamed to adit that the only stuff I've been able to get my hands on are stuff assigned to me by school, or mangas. xD

I read mostly novels and plays. I read quite a few plays, too, since i'm really into broadway. In fact, i've even had to perform some of them. Some popular ones were Bye Bye Birdie, Miss Saigon, and Phantom of the Opera.

One book I really enjoyed was Silas Marner. As for anything "french", i read Tale of Two Cities, but I can't say I really liked it all that much. Well, maybe the second read was enjoyable. The first read was way too tedious. I wasn't use to that style of writing at all.

[uchihashinobi]

I read mostly novels and plays. I read quite a few plays, too, since i'm really into broadway. In fact, i've even had to perform some of them. Some popular ones were Bye Bye Birdie, Miss Saigon, and Phantom of the Opera.

Wow! You performed some of those...I give you credit. I LOOOVED all three of those productions. Who did you play?
Have you read or seen the play Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmerman? I love how the play is done all in or near water. I eat up the Greek Mythology stuff.

[Vlastokov]

Since I'm a bass singer, I was just a regular soldier in Miss Saigon.

I was Conrad in Bye Bye Birdie(my favorite role ever) and the phantom in PotO.

I'm a really good dancer, so I get most of those parts because of the fact that not many other male actors/singers can dance.

[Xandra Kitee]

One book I really enjoyed was Silas Marner. As for anything "french", i read Tale of Two Cities,

*choke* I understand what you mean by "french" but still...

Well, you should try "Les Misérables" by Victor Hugo. I think it's pretty popular around the world.

[silverace99]

There are Les Miserables shows in the US all the time, everywhere. I still haven't gone to one tho.

[uchihashinobi]

@Vlastokov
That's highly commendable.


Les Miserables is so depressing....I haven't seen it on stage either though, I only read the book.

[Vlastokov]

Oh, i forgot to answer uchiha's Q:

i've never heard of zimmerman. The only greek stuff i've ever been into was Socrates and the Odyssey, I actually quite enjoyed reading the structure and twists in Oedipus.

I've never got to read/see Les Miserables. After doing alot of musicals, my teacher tried to get me to do more "pure" plays, withjust acting, so i starting reading up on The Exonerated, Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, and stuff like that.

[Xandra Kitee]

hum... I actually feel bad for making such a lame suggestion. Not that it's not a good book but well... It's like suggesting Shakespeare when you're English... It's kind of obvious. >_>

For those who are really interested in french litterature :

- The stranger, Albert Camus.
- Journey to the End of the Night, Louis-Ferdinand Celine.
- Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert (though, I really don't know what it's worth once translated. This book is a master piece in the use of French so...)
- Froth on the Daydream / Mood Indigo, Boris Vian.
- Any Charles Baudelaire (though poetry rarely survives translation).

And for plays (others than really classical since I've never EVER met somebody of my age who liked Jean Racine. T_T)
- The Respectful Prostitute, Jean-Paul Sartre. (a real kick to play)
- Any Jean Cocteau. But especially The Infernal Machine.
- Lorenzaccio, Alfred de Musset. (the play that made regret to be a girl)
- Medea, Jean Vauthier. (I would have gladly sell my mother to play that. Unfortunately, I did not have to. >_>)

[Vlastokov]

I LOVED Medea. I was actually supporting her throughout the whole play, except for that one little scene with her kids.

[Xandra Kitee]

Well, it's kinda the main point of the play/story. I can't say I supported her but I definitely understood and admired her from the very begining. She's scary but nevertheless very pure.

I love those kind of characters. The kind you should plainly loathe or despise but just can't because they can do things bigger than other people... should those things be horrible. Or because even in the lowest situations their terrible candor make them beautiful.

Anyway, Jason bring that upon himself. She betrayed her father and killed her brother for him. What did he expect by cheating on her ? That she'll just throw 2 or 3 amphoras at him ? ^^

And... I'll shut up. =^^=

[Vlastokov]

Oh, I get it, and theose children represented everything between him and her, and so she destroyed that, but still...kids. =\

[dlonyaR]

Nice

[Vlastokov]

Nice

Word.

[Xandra Kitee]

Oh, I get it, and theose children represented everything between him and her, and so she destroyed that, but still...kids. =\

I don't think she wanted to destroy the "living memories" of their past. It's more like : what would hurt him more than anything else ?

I think she would have kill him first if she wanted to forget about him. She killed Creuse but that's not enough. Here, she wants him to be in insufferable pain. Like she is.

Well, that's how I see it.

[Supreme Dictator]

I can play the songs from Les Miserables. ^^

Sorry. I won't derail it further.

[Vlastokov]

Oh, I get it, and theose children represented everything between him and her, and so she destroyed that, but still...kids. =\

I don't think she wanted to destroy the "living memories" of their past. It's more like : what would hurt him more than anything else ?

I think she would have kill him first if she wanted to forget about him. She killed Creuse but that's not enough. Here, she wants him to be in insufferable pain. Like she is.

Well, that's how I see it.

You know what, you're absolutely right.

[Soldat]

It's conversations like this that always make me feel really uncultured and stupid . . .

[JACKIEEE]

It's conversations like this that always make me feel really uncultured and stupid . . .

oh don't feel like that!
i think i something with a similar plot for a class last year. or maybe it was that story. i'd look it up, but i already sold back that book! haha.

---
but being on subject. i work at the department store nordstrom. :]

[derrio]

Is your avatar, by chance, you?

Oh, hey I still work for my school, and off and on QA Tester for Rainbow Studios, as well as a programmer for our own (5 friends and myself) studios.