Busy, busy, busy (Sort of)

So, in three weeks, I have watched the entire aired five season run of "Supernatural", worked on my final art project, kept up with all my homework, nabbed an A+ on my latest English 321 exam, exercised thrice weekly at the school gym, practiced my dance weekly, kept up with my regular work schedule, eaten my first popsicle in years, volunteered at my church's huli huli chicken sale, finally bashed out a few more pages of my novel, and finished reading three library books as well as As I Lay Dying, which was assigned reading, but which I finished early because I liked it so much.

Basically, yes, I am magic! Or slightly deranged. Take your pick. I'm also very tired right now and think I am coming down with a nasty cold, which is just perfect considering final exams are a mere two weeks away now, and I have my final art project and portfolio due in precisely one week. Cough, cough. I drank three cups of tea tonight, which did ease my throat, although the caffeine didn't really wake me up. Instead I feel like my head just got packed with wet cement. Yaaaaaawn.

Two more weeks, two more weeks, two more weeks.

Tomorrow, PBS is gonna air David Tennant's performance as "Hamlet". I strongly recommend y'all watch it, okay?

And that's all for now! Eyes hurt. I'm going to go wash my hair with cold water or something to try to wake myself up a little, and then I'm going to write an essay or two before turning in. Russian studying can wait until tomorrow. Yeah.

Going Home

Well, it's officially done. I filled out my 'leave of absence' paperwork today and will be taking one year's leave from school. This will be utterly bizarre, because I haven't had a year off of school since, um, I was four. That doesn't mean I won't be busy, however. I'll be using my time to write my novel, take care of my siblings, help run the house, and get in the best dancing shape of my life.

Today was extremely hot and humid. I'll need to grab some water soon, because I'm feeling seriously dehydrated . . . I found out I got a 90 on my Russian midterm, which I'm pleased with because my professor isn't the greatest (to put it mildly) and I'm just pleased to be within striking distance of an A. Of course, if I don't manage to strike that A, I won't be pleased any more. I'm a perfectionist. Sometimes it's a curse.

I started "At the Mountains of Madness" today, but so far it's reading like a very underwhelming version of "The Lost World". Hopefully it'll get scary and interesting soon. I'd hate April to be full of books I was unimpressed with.

Tomorrow I'm going to volunteer at my church's chicken sale. I don't know exactly what this will entail, but I'll manage. I must remember to put sunscreen on my face and shoulders, though. The sun's been blazing lately.

:)

Okay, yeah, I'm feeling better now. See, I told you I'd cheer up eventually. I've discovered the television show "Supernatural" and have been seriously creeping myself out and laughing as well. I've also been reading "Robots of Dawn", which is awesome so far. Add some strawberry guava juice and homework getting completed to the mix, and I'm definitely one happy camper again.

I'm also pretty tired. So tonight I'm going to just sleep and make sure to empty my mind of all stress and schoolwork related subjects. Who knows, maybe I'll actually have some interesting dreams for once--I used to have awesome dreams but they've just been weird or boring lately. I think it has something to do with my stress levels and sleep deprivation. Anyhow. Type to you all again later!

Ugh

I'm having a bit of a bad day. I'm getting all sorts of conflicting information on how to take a year's leave of absence from school, but need to make my decision soon, and the stress and magnitude of the decision and all the unexpected problems with what should be a simple process that keep cropping up is leaving me a bit rattled and emotional and run-down. It's just compounding a lot of issues at once, and I'm finding it all a bit too much to handle. I just checked my phone's clock to find out I've been sitting on a bench at school crying for two hours straight. It makes me feel daft, which just makes me a bit more miserable. Oh well. I was happy this morning, so I know I'll pull myself together and cheer up. The wind rustling and roaring in the dead palm fronds above my head is noisy in a comfortable susurrus sort of way, and I like the feel of the cool air and the warm stone bench I'm perched on. I also finished "Snow-Walker" today at last, and am eager to begin reading "The Robots of Dawn", although that will have to wait until I'm back at the apartment because I left it in my room. Also, I walked out of my Nutrition exam this morning feeling a lot better than I had when I walked in, which is a good thing.

So I'll gather my scattered nerves and thoughts and emotions together and carefully put them all back into their labeled compartments and drawers and then lock up and go out to get something to eat and something to read. That should help immensely.

"Victory of the Daleks"

The biggest issue I have with the new series of Doctor Who is that they have these brilliant old-style stories, but are FAR too compressed by the miserable 45-minute length of the new Who episodes. I like the new Doctor and companion immensely, and I like the Old Who flavor of the new episodes, but it makes me sad because they could be much more effective if they were given a much longer running time. This is specially evidenced in "Victory of the Daleks", which I watched and then felt was really intended to work as an old-style six-parter story. Every five minutes there was a new crisis. For example *spoiler alert* the revelation about the scientist being a robot comes very quickly in the series, and reminded me of the revelation of that one guy in "Resurrection of the Daleks" being a robot, only that revelation was left until about two episodes into the story, if I remember correctly. Here, I hardly got to meet the scientist before his real identity is revealed. Although he was a good character still *end spoiler* Oh well, it's still very enjoyable--just hasn't quite found a perfect balance between old and new yet. I'm hoping it will in the future though, because that would be amazing.

Eleven's Troughton-esque hand-rubbing towards the end though had me giggling, hehe. And when he smashed the teacup out of the Dalek's . . . hand? Amy didn't have too much to do, but I still like her a lot. :)

Can't wait until next week--the return of the Weeping Angels, aaah!

8 Bit Doctor Horrible

This is brilliantly done! If you like Dr. Horrible, watch this. It's totally awesome :D

. . . Oops, wrong fandom. But still. Watch it anyway. I can't wait for Act 3!

MIND. BLOWN.

OH. MY. SILMARIL.

I don't even want to admit how many times I screamed aloud while watching this week's episode of Lost, ha ha. So. Much. Craziness. And while I was always against FakeLocke to begin with, now I'm dead set against him! FakeLocke = Evil, and I don't care what anybody else says!!!

SPOILERS BELOW:

1) I can't wait to get back to the Richard/Ben/Miles group, because they're gonna be like a walking comedy troupe. Their personalities are gold together.
2) I laughed when Ilana blew up.
3) I was yelling "Run him over!" at Des when he's in the car at the end, and then was totally surprised but pleased when HE DID.
4) I was terrified from the moment I saw that well that I knew where Desmond was gonna end up--and sure enough, I was right again. That was one of the scream moments, btw.
5) I'm secretly happy that mad freak-out Richard is back again. He's gone through more emotions in the past two days of his life than he has for two centuries, methinketh.
6) FakeLocke's weird head-tilty thing when he looks at people scares me. I get scared by the weirdest things.
7) I was sad to see Black Rock go.
8) Imagining Desmond eating fried chicken is one of the funniest things ever. So is his new "I'm wearing sunglasses" attitude. Melikey. But get him out of the well.
9) OHMIGOSH CHOCOLATE FACTORY:



And that is all. I am gonna watch that again. And again. And then watch "The Constant" to cheer myself up. Bwaaah . . . .

Things are finally moving, and that's proving to be nothing short of pure awesome. I'm going to go do homework now because I'm too excited to sleep. I'll take this opportunity to thank Professor Littman and Anna for persuading me to watch this show over a year ago. Consider yourselves each gifted with a virtual cookie and sonic screwdriver.

Monday, Monday

Just another Monday. One of many Mondays. But no matter how practiced I get in dealing with Mondays, it never becomes any easier. I met with a medley of advisers today, and will continue to do so over the course of this week and the next. I also accidentally walked through a particularly populous ant trail in my stocking feet this morning before realizing that I was walking through an ant trail in my stocking feet. Yuck. Ants really disturb me for some reason. I don't like spiders, but ants make me feel sick. There's something both really human about them and really alien about them that bothers me. Anyhow.

I've begun reading "Snow-Walker", and can't believe how thick it is. It's about 625 pages long, but so far it's pretty good. Not remarkable, but pretty good. So far, it's still worth reading. The style's good, the characters are likable, I just wish they were developed a bit deeper.

That's all for now. I need to get some sleep to rest up for tomorrow's English 321 exam. And, as you can probably tell by the rambling nature of this post, I'm pretty tired. So I'll catch up with you folks later!

A Rambling Ramble

A lot happened over the past few days. After finding my library card literally as I went out the door to go to school, I left school early so I could hop on the bus and make it to the library to pick up my books which were on hold. After arriving at my stop, however, I was extremely not delighted to discover that, thanks to new furlough days, the libraries here are ALL CLOSED ON WEDNESDAYS. Oh, and it was a Wednesday.

So. Not. Right.

Anyway, I was stranded at a downtown bus-stop for forty minutes or so as a result. And didn't get my books, because I had no time from my crazy schedule for the rest of the week to pick them up, and anyway that was the last day I could have kept them on hold. Sometimes the world has an ironic sense of humor. Yesterday (Saturday), however, I walked to a library that's closer to where I live but much smaller, and borrowed four different books. And used my school's online library catalog to put about five more books on hold at school--I don't even remember the exact number, haha. I don't know how I'm going to read all of these before school ends and I'm flying home, but that's okay. It's better to have too many books than too few.

On Friday I finally got to watch "The Secret of Kells", a fantastic and beautiful Irish animated film about the Book of Kells. The animation is riveting, and the story is compelling too . . . the big conflict in the story, the big question, is whether to spend manpower building walls to keep out the Viking invaders, or to spend it illuminating beautiful manuscripts like the Book. If we devote all our energies to producing works of art, and to writing and knowledge and beauty, are we being foolhardy? Or is it really better to spend our time being practical and building those walls at the expense of building art and knowledge, because then we don't really have anything worth protecting? The power of the abstract vs. the practical; light vs. dark; imagination vs. reality; myth vs. mundane . . . That's some heady stuff. And of course the film is completely saturated in Irish-ness and Celtic-ness, which means I'd have loved it even if it hadn't been as good as it was, ha. The music was great too, and I did get sniffly towards the end. When this film (which, sadly, is being released only in very limited numbers of theatres in the US) is available on dvd, I strongly recommend you at least rent it. The animation alone, hand-drawn and inspired by the illustrations in the Book of Kells, is mesmerizing and unique. Here's a trailer, to give you an idea of what this film is like :)



After going to the library yesterday I had dinner with a whole side of the family I had never met before--the side I get the Hawaiian from. I enjoyed meeting everyone, and got to try all sorts of foods I've never had before--poi, lomi salmon, laulau . . . there was also some really tasty tako. All in all, it was a very good day.

And now I have to get ready for yet another crazy, busy week. Only a few more to go until I get on the plane to go home, though. Whee!

Best Moments of the Week So Far (In No Particular Order):

1) Finding my library card again.
2) Having my Russian midterm unexpectedly pushed back yet AGAIN.
3) Watching Buster Keaton and Laurel and Hardy with my English 337 professor.
4) Desmond. Faraday. 'Nuff said.
5) Writing some more novel.
6) SEEING A GUY IN THE COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCE ADVISING CENTER WITH HIS FEET TATTOOED TO LOOK LIKE HE'S WEARING THE WINGED SANDALS OF MERCURY. That, my friends, is just awesome.

Whew . . .

Gotta do Russian studying. Now. And I have a headache.

Anyway, I was all set to enjoy the long-awaited Desmond-centric episode tonight when it got cut off at a crucial moment by a flash flood advisory. So. Annoying. It marred the whole episode, which is a huge shame. Anyway, I ended up liking the episode, but also being very, very confused. I need to watch it again. On Hulu, where no flood advisories will get in the way.

And there's no worries about flooding where I am, so that's why I sound so nonchalant about the whole advisory thing. It just broke the mood of the episode for me at a crucial point, which made the episode less engrossing than it should have been!!!

Although . . . Daniel and Desmond and Charlie all in one episode together? That already gets a happy dance by default. Emotional-scene-that-was-ruined-by-flood-advisory would have been epic, I know. SO, I will empty my mind, rewatch the episode, and not only like it, but love it like I should have the first time. Hopefully. I was loving it until the beeping and recorded voice cut across everything! >:(

I bought tickets to watch the Hawaii premiere of "The Secret of Kells" on Friday night, which I'm super excited about. I've been wanting to watch this film for a long time, thank goodness it's finally here on the island!

And I'm going to fail my Russian midterm tomorrow. But I can retake it. So I will retake it and do better.

I also have not managed to find my mysterious vanishing library card, so I guess I'll just shell out the fifteen dollars or whatever needed to buy a new one. What a pain.

Any last notes? Um . . . I watched Laurel and Hardy's "The Music Box" at an Honors English Program meeting today. That was fun. And I'm almost done with S is for Space. It's an interesting group of stories.

Also, after a vote in class today my Western lit classmates voted to read excerpts from Plato's Republic for next classtime instead of my choice, excerpts from Herodotus' The Histories. I've read both books before multiple times, so I don't really care I suppose, considering that after the real thing I'm always disappointed in excerpts anyway, but I'm not going to bother reading Plato. I know that blasted Analogy of the Cave by heart and back-to-front by now, thank you very much--I've only had to study it every single year of my life since I was thirteen!!! And role-play about it in class last semester, no less!! Sigh.

I like Plato's writings, they are interesting, and the Analogy is very compelling. It would just . . . have been nice to have been able to reread about Xerxes attempting to punish a river by throwing hot branding irons and chains into it for a change. I don't want to have to sit through yet another explanation of the Cave while most of my fellow students are introduced to it for the first time. Thursday will be a slooooooow day.

I've Lost My Library Card!

I don't know how it happened! I really don't! But I went to the public library to return books today, and picked up three more, and then was suddenly struck with the awful revelation:

My library card is not in my wallet. Nor is it in my jeans pocket. Nor is it in my school backpack. It is GONE.

The library will hold my books for me for three days. I have to find my library card in three days. This is extremely annoying. My library card is like an extension of myself; it's as though I was just about to get a manicure when suddenly I realize my hand has disappeared. Except I never get manicures, ever. But whatever.

I'm going to poke around my sock drawer and bookshelves and empty all my coat pockets. Hopefully that card turns up. If not . . . ugh, that doesn't bear thinking about! :(

"The Eleventh Hour"--Welcome, Matt Smith!!

If you have not yet watched "The Eleventh Hour", please go watch it. It's available on Youtube now (HERE is one link), so many thanks to our friends across the pond for not making us wait two more weeks!

Okay, so I'm too tired (it's late at night here) to write a full review, and anyways I don't see what the point of that would be. So to sum up: "The Eleventh Hour" is fantastic. The alien spaceship was pretty cheap and not very impressive, but I didn't care because of the following:

1) The Doctor. Matt Smith is BRILLIANT, as I had expected and hoped him to be, but it's still a relief that he WAS. He is already joining my favorite Doctors pantheon (that means he's joining 2, 5, and 10, in case you were wondering, haha), and it's only his first outing. I thought the episode would, at least on some level, be sad to watch. But to be quite honest . . . I did not miss Tennant. Which is a relief. I was afraid that I'd watch scenes and wonder how he would have played them, but Smith plays them so well, I simply relax and enjoy his performance and don't think about other things. So huzzah for the Eleventh Doctor, and I can't wait until next Saturday!

2) Amy Pond. Another Scottish accent! Anyway, I loved her character too; she's very real but very entertaining to watch, and her character is fleshed out and has depth already, even though it's only the first episode! She also works very well with Smith; their interactions were great. This is definitely a winning TARDIS team, and a companion who's story and welfare I can care about.

3) The music. It's different, but I really enjoy it. Apart from the opening theme, which I'm not so keen on . . . it's not horrible, really, but it's not good. The new opening visuals however are much more enjoyable than I had anticipated.

4) The story. It was not an amazing story, but was elevated by the quality of the actors' performances. The time travel plot within the story (without giving too much away) added the depth to the story that was needed, so the aliens were really only background to me against which I could watch and judge my first impressions of the Eleventh Doctor and Amy. And the story wasn't bad anyway--it was clever, and had satisfying moments of creepiness.

5) Nods to previous Doctors/episodes. Nothing really blatant. But they were there, subtlely enough to be entertaining for Classic Who fans. At the moment when video footage showing brief glimpses of each past Doctor flashed on the screen, that in combination with the awesome music and the context literally made me jump up and cheer, which was pretty much my reaction to the whole episode. I had the somewhat surreal experience of watching "The Waters of Mars" right after I finished watching "The Eleventh Hour" (there was a "Doctor Who" marathon showing all the DT specials on the telly); it's one of my favorite "Doctor Who" episodes. It was interesting; watching it I instantly identify with Ten, but coming back to Eleven, I instantly recognize Eleven as the Doctor too. Not a continuation of Ten, but a continuation of the Doctor. Smith's portrayal is natural, not an aping of Ten, for which I am relieved. It shows that the character is still in good hands, evolving and yet staying the same for yet another regeneration.

6) Script. There were some madly funny moments, some powerful moments, some poignant moments, and even some shivers-down-your-spine moments. So that's all in good hands.

The verdict: I am thoroughly pleased with this new era of "Who" as based upon what I saw in this one episode. The Doctor and Amy Pond are just about perfect. So go run off and watch it if you have not already, and then let me know what you think!

And so much for writing only a short review. Oops.

"How To Train Your Dragon"

Blessed Good Friday to you!

I went to the movies with my grandmother today, because she's been wanting to watch "How To Train Your Dragon" for a long time. I would not have gone on my own, because I wasn't sure if I was interested in the film or not; I've never liked anything by Dreamworks before, and the trailers looked only so-so to me.

Well, after watching it, I have to urge you to watch the film. It was very, very good. It managed to get past the somewhat trite plot that is in just about every kid's movie (kid doesn't fit in; kid is therefore a disappointment to his father; kid decides to secretly do his own thing; kid is found out; kid is in trouble; kid manages to become a hero and save the day) by fleshing it out and adding an emotional depth to it that I have not seen in many computer animated movies beyond Pixar's, and certainly not in any previous Dreamworks film. The animation is gorgeous; the scenery is beautiful and the characters are great fun. Yeah, I'm gushing a bit, but honestly, I really loved this movie, and loved it all the more because I wasn't expecting to love it. Therefore this is an honest, unbiased reaction. I walked out of the theatre wanting to go back and watch it again, which didn't happen for "Alice in Wonderland", for example. Please go watch it and support it! My grandmother cried at the ending, and though I didn't, I was grinning for the entire film, and yeah . . . I did get a bit emotional at times, and no film since "Up" has done that to me (although "Up" did get me to actually shed tears). "Dragon" was so good, I'm wondering how "Toy Story 3" can possibly top it. And I'm a complete Pixar fan too. "Dragon" isn't "Ratatouille", but it is extremely good nonetheless.

Speaking of "Up", there are a few silent montage scenes in "Dragon" that reminded me strongly of the opening of "Up": The emotion and time progression being conveyed through only the visuals and beautiful music. Very different in mood to "Up"s amazing scene, but still very effective. I wonder if Dreamworks was inspired by that Pixar movie in making those montages, and I hope that such minimal animation is used in future films, because I find it very artistic.

By the way: I watched it in 3D, and it's definitely designed to be fully experienced in 3D, as there's plenty of beautiful flying sequences and stuff (and a part that looks like ashes are floating right past your head, haha), but it's not slavish to the 3D format, so I think it would be beautiful in 2D too. I say this because I know 3D is way more expensive than 2D, and we're all pennypinching these days, aren't we?

Oh, and I found out afterwards that David Tennant voiced one of the Vikings, an unnamed minor character, but still. He's getting everywhere. And that's not a bad thing :)

A large part of why the film was so wonderful, to me, was the music. I'm posting a Youtube video below that contains main themes from the film, so you can have a listen. This is now one of my favorite soundtracks ever; the Celtic-ness of it all of course plays to my Irish dancer nature anyway, but it's absolutely beautiful and emotive as well, and pairs perfectly to the film itself. It should definitely be nominated for awards this year. Give it a listen.

Anyway, I'm done jabbering for now. I'll try later today to post a medieval poem I discovered yesterday which I think is very suitable for Good Friday. Have a wonderful Easter weekend!



PS: I am aware that "How To Train Your Dragon" is originally a book. I am also aware that this film is supposedly completely different from the book apart from sharing the title and some character names. I haven't read the book, so I can't really say which is better, but I think this is a case of "Howl's Moving Castle": The book may be excellent, and the film may be very different from the book, but the film is excellent too, in its own right.