Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Boxed-In

I had barely left my bedroom in two days.

I am the kind of person who would rather ignore the symptoms or pains of any illness rather than address them head on and spend the day in bed. I figure that if I ignore illnesses, they will eventually go away. This was one case where I was stuck in bed and there was no way around it.

My Mom thought it would be nice to have the satellite hooked up in my room so that I would have something to watch while confined in my room. Although my definition of confined in a box of a bedroom and what someone else finds to be the definition of confined are two completely different things.

I have never had actual live television in my bedroom before. I can understand why. Television can be very distracting. While I would not normally watch more than one movie in a row at a time, I could watch an endless marathon of movies, from the oldies, the jems of Audrey Hepburn, to the ridiculous “I-would-never-watch-unless-stuck-in-bed-movies” like Disaster Movie. It really is the perfect title though because the movie is an absolute disaster.

On the first night of having television I found an episode of Grey’s Anatomy playing. The channel apparently plays re-runs of the show on weekends. One episode on television led me to watch the first season of the show on DVD. I am really not a fan of hospitals or medical dramas, but I do like the show. I fast forward through the actual medical parts of the episodes when watching them. So what really is a forty-five minute episode on DVD turns into twenty-minutes of perfectly condensed soap opera.

Two days of not leaving my room for any extended periods of time was really taxing. I am not claustrophobic, but after two days, my room started to feel like the size on an elevator, albeit a very pink, well-equipped elevator, but an elevator nonetheless.

You would think that it was Prison Break the way that I am describing things. It may seem mundane, but I like being able to go into the living room to watch live television or the computer room to physically sit at a desk and use the desktop computer instead of being on my laptop.

I know, I had a flat screen and a computer either way, but I found myself going crazy staring at the same four pink walls.

I decided that it would be good to get some fresh air, even for a few minutes. I figured that going to Starbucks would be a way to lift my spirits. There was a man begging for money outside of the store as I was entering and all of my thoughts and complaints about being trapped in what can be seen as a very well stocked and comfortable room seemed absolutely ridiculous. He did not have anything but the small square of pavement that he was standing on and I had a large square of cushioned bedroom.

This was my challenge? Having the luxury to stay at home for two days doing nothing but watch television and catch up on sleep?

6 comments:

  1. Carley,

    I enjoyed the tone of this post. You wrote in great detail the 'luxury' of your bedroom and then all of a sudden you're talking about this homeless man outside starbucks-Starbucks- talk about the height of luxery beverages eh? In any case, some people might critize this post because it could seem like you're just pushing out and ending to be done.

    Personally, I like it because the sudden leap and the lack of detail regarding the encounter with the homeless is much like our everyday experience with them-you don't expect it and often times, you don't spend much time taking in their details, but hurry past and order your double whipped, low fat latte.

    Good Job!

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  2. Hi Carley! I enjoyed the style of writing you put forth for your 3rd post. I find that you've built a really fluid post here; one that didn't bog down, or let itself get lost in detail. It flowed really nicely all the way through, and seemed nearly effortless to read.

    By the by, the recurring theme of television is interesting throughout all of your blogs. We started with 'Youtube', moved to infomercials and are now on prime-time TV and films. You're sticking to your blog title, in a way, because that too is from a show!

    It's interesting how much that's popped up. I think it lends a good deal of cohesiveness to the blog.

    And I agree with Laara as well: a great 'true-realism' type of encounter with your meeting the homeless man. It might not have been fleshed out, but it got the realism of human contact with strangers quite well.

    Well done, altogether.

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  3. I agree with Alex when he says that the fluidity of the post is really nice. It could've easily been overpowered with large amounts of detail but the simplicity. I do find that the end wraps up rather quickly and feel like there is more to be told. The tone is interesting and I appreciate the insertion of television shows and movies that you were watching. It gave the post a quality that was easy to relate to. Good Job!

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  4. I liked this post because it was about something so simple, watching television in your room. You did a good job of turning something as simple as this into a great piece of writing. It goes to show that it doesn't matter what you are writing about, as long as you can write about it well.
    This part made me laugh: “I could watch an endless marathon of movies, from the oldies, the jems of Audrey Hepburn, to the ridiculous “I-would-never-watch-unless-stuck-in-bed-movies” like Disaster Movie. It really is the perfect title though because the movie is an absolute disaster.” I’ve never seen Disaster Movie, but the ironic way that you explained it appears to sum it up perfectly.
    I also like how you gave enough detail about the shows you described so that the reader doesn't necessarily have to watch them to understand the just of what you are saying.
    I could also relate to what you are saying, about how we think our own situations are bad until we see someone who has it worse than we do. Your post was interesting and well done.

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  5. Well written. I liked it, and I like how jarring the switch from your bedroom to the homeless man is. But, I have to question the lack of detail. I want to see more, hear more from that encounter. It made you think but you seem to skip out on telling us -what- you thought except for the summary.

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  6. I enjoyed reading your post. It was easy reading and flowed nicely. It was a great reminder about how we need to appreciate the things we have because not everyone is that lucky. Nice work.

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