Computer failures, and one success

There's nothing more annoying than having most of your assignments be online and not being able to access the internet from your room. The saga of my struggle to access the internet is a long one, but it culminated last night in me deciding to just install XP from scratch, wiping out everything saved on my computer from before; and it probably would have worked if either my graphics card was compatible or the program had picked up the on-board graphics card. Either way, I'm left with a blank screen or one so badly pixillated in the ancient computer sense that I can't see what's supposed to happen next. Hopefully the IT people will be much more helpful than they have previously been and just fix the problem for me.

On a positive note, I finally figured out how to access AIM Express from the library computers, so now I can talk to people who probably think I've dropped off the face of the earth. :)

Just finished reading: Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden. Lots of nice rich detail suck you in at first, though it also makes the narrative at the end seem a bit thin in comparison. Interesting that such a book was written by an American man, albeit one who has several degrees in Japanese art history and the like. I think that may be why Sayuri's struggle for personal happiness felt a little disappointing when it ultimately succeeds in the end; it's such an American value. Not that disenfranchised Japanese women don't want happiness....I don't know. Maybe it's just the way in which it was done. This book actually made me wonder what all those Japanese wives whose husbands are entertained by geisha thought. Did they just accept it as the system, or were they resentful, or what?

Now that I've read the book, I'd like to borrow the movie and watch it. It didn't get the best reveiews, but I think I'd still like to see it. I'd like to see what parts of the book they emphasize, because I think there are several ways you could play it; though I'm sure Hollywood will definitely play it a certain way. We'll see if I'm right.