My Crippling Social Anxiety

Here is the thing about my social anxiety: it is pretty ridiculous. I don't know if this is true of anyone else, but I don't actually get seriously anxious until after the social interaction happens. I have this habit of obsessively thinking over conversations and remembering everything I said that could be construed as awkward and dumb (and you of all people know that I can have lots of dumb moments). And while this whole anxiety thing is happening, there's a more rational part of my brain that is telling me that I am ridiculous and there's no reason I should worry about past conversations because the other person probably doesn't care that much if I had a brain fart or moved my hands too much.

But then I think about all the brain farts I had and all the weird and unrelated hand movements I made, and feel deflated.

In other, rational news, though, I once again met up with my conversation partner and she brought one of her friends with her, as I have told you, who was pretty awesome. I'm finding that every Korean male I meet here has already been in the military. I get the feeling, and you may confirm this, that people who have been in the military tend to be more dynamic people in general. Something about character development. Anyway, even though I am incredibly nervous in these kinds of social situations, I had a grand time and didn't choke on my own spit or anything (these things have happened in the past).

They also told me to spell my name 에이미 instead of 애미 for reasons that are not readily evident to me at the moment, but I will go with what they said because they're probably the experts.

Yesterday, on the spur of the moment when I found myself in possession of $6 without any pressing costs to cover, I decided to go watch The Cabin in the Woods. As an admirer of Joss Whedon, I have wanted to watch this movie from the moment I saw the trailers a few months ago, even though they made it look like it was just another lame horror movie about stupid kids getting hacked to pieces in the woods.

Well it wasn't a normal. In fact, it was pretty messed up, and premise was so opposite to what I was expecting that I spent a lot of the movie feeling a strange sense of "what... what just happened? And why?!"

It was a riotously grand time. I've found that attending movies alone sometimes is pretty fun.

Okay, it's later now and I just received a package of delicious goodies to tide me over through the valley of death that is finals week.

The truth is that finals week isn't a valley of death. The truth is that finals week is pretty cushy because even with the extra studying, there's a lot of time since there aren't any classes and usually never more than one final per day.

But, the package of goodies is still endlessly appreciated, so thanks, Mom. I ate some of the Mike & Ikes in there and was transported to joyful days of yore.

So you know that thing I have about not wanting to do things unless I've had time to mentally prepare for them? Well as evidenced from my midnight movie run last night, that is not always true. But I only have about a half-pint of spontaneity in me at any given time, and right now it's all gone, which is why I'm not a huge fan of the way people have been bursting into my room for the last half an hour insisting that I attend some school-sponsored bash called "Fun Before Finals". I wouldn't even mind much, except I'm bad at parties. I'm bad at spontaneity and bad at parties. What am I good at then, you ask? Well. I am good at being a snooty prude. Just ask anyone.

Bundling

Now that fall is pretty much just over, I am starting to wear hats. Today I'm wearing one with earflaps, because it's windy. If it gets any colder, I will wear my fuzzy hat with earflaps.

So I pretty much have a lot to say about The Hunger Games (not least the casting choices for the film), but my hands are cold right now so I'll probably just wait until I get home tomorrow. I'm thinking the second book would be a good Christmas present to ourselves (I could buy one half, you could buy the other). Heheh.

So the other night I watched this Thai movie called Raging Phoenix. It was an action movie. I think it kind of had too much of the same kind of action. It got a little boring after a little while. I can only watch a hundred-pound girl beating up thugs with tae kwon do for so long. It was pretty fun though.

This morning my roommate said that she hears me talking in my sleep almost every night. She told me that last night I was going "hahahaha... wow." over and over again in my sleep. I don't know what it's like to hear a sleeping person laugh, but I'd guess it's a little creepy. Sorry, roommate.

Anyway, library class is over so I must away. I decided to try out NaNoWriMo this year. So far I have 4,000 words (on top of the 20,000 I already had). It's going pretty well, I guess. I killed off one of my characters, so that's good.

Keep it classy,
-Amy

School Beans

I think my only real problem with learning Korean verbs is that they're simple where English is complicated (the sheer number of conjugations in English versus only four in Korean) and complicated where English is simple (English has no levels of courtesy in the verbs or anywhere else, while Korean has about a million, and they're all extremely important). So it's hard to wrap my head around it all.

Today it's cold and damp and I really want to just stay in and drink tea. Instead I am in the library, with the taste of hazelnut-flavored coffee still lingering in my mouth from breakfast. I can't believe I keep forgetting to bring a little bit of coffee from home so I can make myself the odd actually good cup of coffee when the mood strikes me. Speaking of home, I can't remember if you're coming up here tomorrow or Saturday. Either one's fine though.

The other day I picked a song to learn and I went to the music building yesterday to try it out. It's called Powerful Stuff by Sean Hayes. It's a really fun song but I don't think it's going to work. Not because I have to translate guitar to the piano; I guess me and the song just don't really vibe. I'll have to find something else. Usually I have to be really excited about a song to be able to learn it. I learned that Adele song in like three days. If you have any ideas hit me up.

The other day I watched a really fun and awesome movie called Castaway on the Moon about a guy who tries to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge but ends up surviving and washing up on this little abandoned island right next to a city, but he can't get back because he doesn't know how to swim and he ends up being stuck there for like five months while civilization is only like half a mile away. It was funny and a little sad too and I think you'd like it even though it's a foreign film and I know you don't like subtitles.

Now that the end is in sight for school (my Foundations of Education class ends on the 3rd... that's only a few days away!), I'm starting to think about Christmas for realzls. They already have some Christmas decorations up in the cafeteria which seems extremely premature since Halloween isn't even here yet, but since I'm planning on pretty much making everything I give, I have to start thinking about it right this minute. I have some good ideas but some of them are going to be pretty hard to carry out. We'll see. I'm excited.

À demain (je pense),
-Amy

Stupid Technology

So you know how you were talking about how you have no way to edit your videos because Windows Movie Maker won't open them? Well I downloaded it because I heard that you can do split screen videos in it (two videos playing side by side), and I was stopped up completely by the fact that it's not compatible with .mp4 videos. So I looked around FOREVER online for a free video file converter that actually worked, and when I finally found one, it took forever to convert the videos I wanted to use, and by the time I was able to open my videos, I was so frustrated that when I couldn't get split screen to work I gave up completely and went to watch a movie instead. I might try to make it work again today, but it was essential to the video I was planning all week to make so that may be slightly postponed.

Anyway. That said, I highly recommend for you to download Windows Live Movie Maker, because it opens any video file and it's about a billion times easier to use for simple things like trimming and adding titles and words and things. It just doesn't do split screen, which just really is not cool.

So That list of things to do before you have kids was pretty cool, but I've already done most of those things. Everything except 6, unless my own room counts, 8 because it's impossible, 11, 12, 13, and 14. My list of things to do befor eI have kids is probably a mile long, and most of it has to do with traveling, writing, and the crazy and eccentric things I'm going to do when I live alone. Stuff like that. I went to this career fair yesterday (it was lame, the only people there were corporations like Honeywell and insurance companies. I guess it was sort of like a career fair for people who are about to graduate), and the only interesting booth there was one looking for people to teach English in Japan, all expenses paid. It looked like a pretty sweet deal. It would be pretty cool to just set aside a year after I've graduated to go teach English somewhere, not to get money but just to enjoy another culture. The cool thing about speaking English is that it's a global language, and there's always somewhere in the world that's going to want someone to teach it to their kids. So there's another thing I'd probably want to do before I have kids.
So the other day I read The Hunger Games (in one day). It was awesome. It brought me back to the Percy Jackson/Alex Rider/Redwall days when I would regularly gobble up a book in one day just because I could. Anyway, Hunger Games was really, really cool and I think you'd love it. Lately I've realized that I'm a reactor. When I watch things or read things, I outwardly react in a way that my roommate probably thinks is really weird. I can't help it! I did a lot of laughing, sounds of dismay, etc while reading my book, so you know it's good. It's my dream to one day be able to write a book like that, that gets people so involved with the story and the characters that they don't want to put it down. It'll probably take me a while to get there. I think the first step will probably be to find someone who will read my writing and be willing to get down to the nitty gritty of what's wrong with it with me. Someday.
 
Anyway, I have to go to Environmental Sci now and get an A. I only got 88 on the last test which is inexcusable because it really is an easy class, so I've got to step up my game and take better notes this unit.
 
Laters,
-Amy

To tea or not to tea?

That is the question. I'm at school, the weather's horrid, I have an hour and a half to wait for my next final (Western civ, will invariably be torture), and the temptation to purchase a hot drink in strong. I have no idea why I didn't think to just bring a car cup with me, and now I'm living with the consequences.

I'm in the computer lab as of this moment. The computer lab is a soulless place, filled with lame equipment, unnatural lighting, and sleep-deprived zombie students pressing keys aimlessly in the hopes that it will better prepare them for the inevitable Final Exam. Not only that, I sat down to this computer about a half-hour ago, only to realize that the computer next to me is evidently the only computer in the entire lab that has Windows 7 on it, with the shmancy graphics and the slick-looking desktop. While I'm over here typing away on what is probably Vista but seems more like Windows 2000, with the bad resolution and the stretched screen and the infinitesimally slow processing skills.

I'm an ungrateful hag!

Yesterday Angela and I went to see Hanna. It was interesting but I'm not completely sure how I feel about it. I certainly enjoyed all the cinematography and the details and a few of the lesser characters, but the premise was really odd and I felt like a bad person for enjoying a film about a 14-year-old murderer. Saoirse Ronan was pretty incredible though. It makes me want to see City of Ember again. Can you believe that Angela hasn't seen that movie? She hasn't even heard of the book. I think we need to make this a priority, don't you?

Today is my last final day. Since I will not return to JCCC at all in the foreseeable future, I think that I will treat myself to that tea. I am excited to be done with school. It's lasted a long time.

-Amy

Quickie

I just watched Fast Five on my break (I have some crazy breaks). Now I want to go be a badass! And I want Ludacris to be my sidekick.

-Amy

P.S. You're really bad at making blog posts!

Gasp!

Doublepost! Not even kidding. This is like an historic event. And even more historically, it's Monday and I'm making a post, even though I'll be seeing you in a couple of hours up at Oak Park. Why am I posting, you ask? No reason! Only I'm at work with little to do (not really, I'm actually not on duty. There's an off-duty tiara that we're supposed to wear when we're here but not working so no one will bother us, but I never wear it because it's made for a six-year-old head), and I figured I'd make a post because 1) I'm free, and 2) I'd rather not do homwork instead.

Last night I watched the season 1 finale of 24. 24 is one of those shows that you absolutely have to commit to because if you don't then you won't like it at all. I didn't like it at all at first, because nothing interesting happened, or everything good that happened was frustrating because there were still 20 hours/episodes for it to go wrong again. And everything did go wrong, up to the very last minute. And I cried and carried on about it for a while, and then went ahead and watched the first episode of season 2. Here are my thoughts, whether or not you're interested in them:
1. Gingers should never have beards. There is something about a ginger with a beard that is just so wrong.
2. There's no way you can seperate from your wife in the middle of your Presidential campaign and still become President.
3. Charlie was in it. Here's the real tragedy: I didn't even know it was Charlie at first because he was an abusive husband and father and he didn't have his super crimefighting mustache. I felt a little like crying.

So that's the lowdown on 24. It was sad and I'm still a little depressed about it. I will fight my depression by doing homework. I will fail. Did you know what I found out today about Galileo? Not that he pioneered the idea of a rotating, revolving, non-universe-centric earth, not that he treated Aristotle's research like gold, but that Galileo was one corny guy. Not even kidding. So there's your lesson of the day.

Later,
Amy

Home Alone. Doing Chores.

So far the list is like this:

Feed cows (5 buckets)

Feed birds

Feed cats

Bring wood down and put some on the fire

Take out trash

Take out recycling

Take out compost

Call school and schedule piano lessons

Write blog post

Make sure Michelle practices the piano

Make a snack to take to a party today

It's pretty intense over here. Good thing I don't have much to distract me. I finished Bones last night, at least what's on Netflix. Overall I'd give the show something like 4 out of 5 because it's fun and interesting and there are cops and science. And Hodgins. Also I'm much better at naming the bones in the skeleton (though it still beats me what the lateral epicondyle is).

I got back to Mor Mor's on Tuesday, work on Wednesday, and school on Thursday. I CAN'T WAIT even though my work schedule is what I would call a complete trainwreck. I need to get back into the swing of things or I'll go crazy with sitting around doing nothing. Well, not today. Today I'm not doing nothing. I'm doing chores.

-Amy

Life!

Sometimes I say I'm really busy, but sometimes I also LIE. For instance, right now I should be writing, BUT, I already made my resolution at the beginning of the month (yesterday) that I'm too busy to do NaNoWriMo entirely, so I will write a minimum of 500 words per day instead of 1667. Lame and possibly pathetic. The real truth? I wrote 1,000 words today (didn't write anything at all yesterday), and then took the rest of my "homework time" watching will.i.am, Nicki Minaj, Usher, Willow Smith, and assorted other contemporary musicians dancing around and singing to catchy beats.

I also had some chocolate. The truth of the matter is that I made another resolution at the beginning of October that I only needed three new things this winter: a flannel shirt, winter boots, and a coat that actually keeps me warm. Then I decided that I could live without the flannel shirt. I'd buy the cheapest winter boots I could allow myself to buy. And I would make myself a winter coat in sewing class.

Here's the thing about sewing. People may tell you that sewing a garment is cheaper, or at least much higher quality, than if you bought a similar garment anywhere in the world of rabid consumerism. Don't believe them. I'm fairly positive that this coat, which I bought fabric for this afternoon, will by the end of it's construction be both more expensive, less well-made, and less cute than something I could pick up at Target for $40. Because the fabric, lining, and interfacing alone cost me $67. Okay, I bought a bit more than I'm going to need, just in case, but still. I'm reaching into the recesses of my uncomfortably empty pockets to fund this sewing class that already cost an arm and a leg.

The other thing I bought this week was brown hair dye. My roots are coming in strong; it's almost time. And I'm almost ready to go back to looking like an English teacher rather than looking like Pink on the worst hair day of her life.

I just watched The Karate Kid. The original one. You know how it was supposed to be so great and so much better than the remake? Maybe I expected too much of it, because I really wasn't feeling it most of the time. I feel kind of shallow for holding old movies to a higher standard than new ones simply because I can't stand watching really dated films. Here are the things I liked about the original:

1. Mr. Miyagi (teacher dude) was awesome and adorable.

2. The love story was super dumb but at least they were like sixteen instead of twelve.

3. It wasn't just pick-up-the-jacket-hang-it-up-put-it-on. It was wax-on-car-wax-off-car, paint-the-fence, sand-the-floor, and paint-the-house. Which in my opinion is waaay more helpful (and plausible!) than just messing around with a jacket.

Here are the things I didn't like:

1. Kid wasn't such a great actor.

2. Maybe they just didn't go into the particulars of karate enough, but the remake made kung fu look waaay more awesome than the original made karate look.

3. Pimply American high school bullies aren't even half as scary as hardcore Chinese middle-schoolers. Just sayin'.

So that's the general idea. I know that you are much less forgiving than I am, and so I'm pretty positive that you wouldn't like the original at all. Jaden Smith is just too cute for that. Speaking of which, I just looked him up and he was born in 1998. I still can't believe that someone born in 1998 can be coherent now. I remember 1998, man. It was a good year. I'm only eighteen and already I'm beginning to feel like an old fogy.

-Amy

P.S. I meant to add a couple of pictures to make this post less wall-of-text-y, but my computer, or the internet, it being stupid and not allowing it.

I Have the Power to Save My Own Life

I can't believe I have to write a blog post to save my life, and I really can't believe that I'm actually caving to the pressure of guilt to make an effort to write a blog post and save my life.

That is indeed an awesome caption on an awesome picture. I am afraid that to top that awesome caption and awesome picture, I will have to search around for a while.

Totally be Justin Beiber for Halloween. Not only is Batman extremely ubiquitous on Halloween, he's also kind of boring by now. Justin Beiber is the new frontier. Besides, if you really want to, you can sing little bits of his songs to the people you're taking candy from.

Besides, if you really want to, you can sing little bits of his songs to the people from whom you're taking candy.

Sorry. I'm in an annoying phase where I always have to obsessively correct myself whenever I happen to utter a sentence with a preposition at the end of it. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-

Last night I watched a movie called Law Abiding Citizen. Don't ever watch it, because it was kind of gross and not really the sort of movie you like at all, but I thought it was pretty neat. It had Gerard Butler, but he wasn't swoony because he didn't have his accent. He's absolutely non-swoony without his accent. He was the bad guy, too, and not really the cool kind of bad guy. It also had Jamie Foxx. I always get a kick out of seeing movies starring singers who do acting on the side. Provided they're passable actors, that is. Jamie Foxx is pretty cool as an actor. Can't say I like his music though. Except Gold Digger, even though he was only in the background doing Ray Charles impressions the whole time. I have an unhealthy obsession with the awesomeness of that song.

There's a girl in my sewing class who looks like Uhura. I should ask her to say that line sometime, just for the lulz.

It's Too Late For Me

The mutation is nearly complete. I'm too far gone. I can't read anything that is even remorelty grammatically incorrect without turning into ENGLISH TUTOR RAGE MACHINE and chopping people into nice linear pieces that I can sadistically arrange into correct, if slightly messy, sentences.

In other news, it's my birthday.Precisely nine people have said happy birthday to me in person today. You are not one of those people. No hard feelings, though. I expect a big present.

I know that sometimes I used to write, like, reviews of books on here, but I haven't really been reading any good books lately. Because all the books I've been reading are for school. Like I'm Not A Racist, But... by some guy named Leonard something, which reads like a twenty page paper that some guy decided to beef up into a book by adding several long words in indecipherable strings so that by the end of his convoluted, run-on sentences, you're completely lost and it takes about two more minutes after that to realise that with all those words, all he was really doing was restating the idea he already stated in the previous paragraph. It's dumb and I don't recommend it.

I finished my pencil skirt this week and I need some help figuring out where I'm ever going to wear it. What occasion would call for me to look like a sexy office aide who doesn't actually do anything but strut around in heels and look good? The answer is that there is no occasion for it. Therefore I'm afraid my racy houndstooth attire will have to hang in the closet for the rest of eternity. It's sad, really. I would have like to have made something, for once, that I would actually wear. Ah well.

-Amy Joy

Canoe Trippin'

A few days ago I read this book called Cold Sassy Tree by a lady named Olive Ann Burns. I'd heard, sometime in the distant past, that it was good. And boy howdy, is it good. There's hardly even any plot, just a To Kill A Mockingbird-esque narration of what it was like to live in small-town America in the early 20th century. I'm not usually a fan of first-person narration, but Will Tweedy's point of view is frank, honest, funny, and fraught with age-appropriate grammatical mistakes. It was good.

We just went on a canoe trip. Got back yesterday. It was awesome, and good memories were goodly made. But now that we're home again, I'm pretty much over vacation. It was pretty good for the first three-quarters, but now I'm aching for some structure. Sitting around all day drinking tea and trying to write isn't good for my productivity. This semester is going to be crazy, with school and new job and NaNoWriMo and going to Texas and everything, and I'm kind of freaking out about it. But I'm still excited to get started. Being busier than I ever have been before in my life is probably better than sitting around for hours wondering what flavour of Jolly Rancher I want to eat next, and questioning whether I have enough energy to get up to fetch it.

Yeah.

-Amy

A Teenager's Thoughts On Her Brief Glimpses Of Adulthood, &c

If it's to awesome to fit on your page, it's awesome enough to open in another tab to read.

Here's the lowdown on being an adult: it's pretty lame. You know that knowing look that adults get in their eyes when they say something like "You'll understand when you get older"? It's complete bull. Being an adult, according to my humble observation of the species, is like being a teenager except, congratulations, now you have to deal with more paperwork.

What can I say? This week has been highly frustrating in the paperwork department.

Here is what I have read since I posted last: The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan. For a book by rick Riordan, it was very disappointing. It didn't even become enjoyable at all until the last quarter, and even then it was super confusing/implausible/frustrating. I know there's going to be a sequel and I just don't have that much hope for it. However awesome Percy Jackson was, I think it may be time for Riordan to venture out of the genre of gods who are just as petty and frustrating as people are and try to write some other, more readworthy genre of YA fiction. There are so many possibilities.

Here is what I have watched since I posted last: Prison Break and Karate Kid. Actually it's been weeks since I watched any Prison Break since Mom blocked Netflix, even though I was halfway through the first season finale. Talk about a cliffhanger. Stopping in the middle of a cliffhanger is doubly suspenseful. My thoughts on the show are tainted by a haze of respect for the writers for making a show that really makes you think, and I mean that in a good way. Not like Lost. Thinking about Lost just hurts your brain and never gets you anywhere. Here are things I like reading about/watching: martial arts, photographic memory, intricate planning, strong silent heroes, really creepily awful terrible bad guys, manipulative people, etc. Because Prison Break had at least four or five of the above, it almost goes without saying that I will love it. Yes, I am predictable in that way. And yes, I am also shallow. Old news.

Karate Kid was awesome. Go watch it. That's all.

-Amy

Yeah, That's Right

Yeah, it's Amy. Long lost and all that.

Though there's a lot of other stuff I could talk about (starting swim team, going to Europe in a bit, getting a car, piano, Life in General, insomnia, Justin Bieber, etc.), I know that whoever reads this really isn't interested in hearing me whine about my totally awesome life that I totally take for granted. Instead, I'm going to jot down some thoughts I have about compelling writing.

I was thinking about it today, since I'm about to finish reading the last book of the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series for the second time and am still amazed at how effectively Riordan can narrate the world and its events from the point of view of a teenaged boy. Books like it have been done before, but you could tell that most of them were written by adults. Reading about Percy Jackson, it's hard to imagine that the person who created him is the same age as my dad. Just think of how much imagination, research, and experience that would take. I can't remember my thought processes as a 12-year-old. When I think back on them now, they seem hopelessly foolish, petty, and arbitrary. It takes a real gift to convey the point of view of a preteen mind realistically without making it seem silly and immature. When I was twelve, I thought I was as mature as any adult. The world was at my fingertips. Because he himself seems so real, Percy Jackson makes the whole mythological storyline seem a little more real, too.

I was going to talk about Shadowmarch too, but my bedtime draws near. My bedtimes shall waver to no blogging needs or insomnia! No sir. Swimming in the morning.

Tonight Michelle and I watched Where the Wild Things Are. It was sad, and another one of those odd little gems of the entertainment industry that makes you realise how complicated life and people and family really are, even if you're a little kid.

Hm, seems like a really can't tear myself away from here without sharing at least a bite of the Life News that everyone no doubt finds really dull. I'm going to have an interview at the writing lab sometime in the near future. I'm so nervous, you can't even imagine. If I get the job, I will have the means to survive the fall while supporting a car, my now-rampant addiction to Jolly Ranchers, and probably the busiest schedule of my life. Crossing fingers here.

-Amy

Good Morning, Neverland

Here is a summation of my life in the past month in the form of a highly repetitive list:

Work
Sleep
School
Work
Do silly things with Michelle
Work
Sleep
Dance

That's the long and short of it. One thing that I did do this week other than those things is cut my own hair. Eek! It's all gone now. I thought I would have regrets, but so far it's been four days or so and I've never looked back. I guess I just really didn't like having to deal with that old bramble.

Ooh! Another thing. I've been reading the Shadowmarch series by Tad Williams. So far I'm on the third book, Shadowrise, and it's freaking intense. I mean, you'd think that with a four-piece series where each book is 700+ pages long, there'd be some time to sit back and get bored, but maaan. I've bitten my fingernails down to the quick. It's taken me a couple of weeks to get to the third book due to a lot of other stuff I've been doing, but if it was like the Days of Old, I would have pushed all other priorities away and eaten those things up in a matter of days. I never thought I would become one of those people who doesn't have the time to read what they want when they want. The realisation that I'm on my way there is an unhappy one. However, it makes me value my reading time more, so that's something. So anyway, if you happen to like extremely long, extremely involved fantasy books and can muster enough interest in them to actually keep track of all the characters without having to look in the index whenever you come across a name you know you should know, then by all means, go read Shadowmarch. The language is possibly more dated than J.R.R. Tolkien, but it's also easier to understand. And there aren't any conlangs, which could be good or bad depending on how hardcore a fantasy reader you are. One thing I really liked about Shadowmarch is that it has its own races, instead of the standard dwarves, elves and fairies. Those get old after a while.

Today on the radio I heard a funny interview that Justin Bieber had in Britain where he couldn't understand the guy who was asking the questions because of his British accent. Haha. You know that little ghetto-girl voice he puts on? Something about him going "What?" several times and laughing apologetically a bit was really hilarious. Anyway. In honor of Canadians, I give you a Canadian comic! Not by me, regrettably.

-Amy

EDIT: Had to fix the link, and also correct myself that the interviewer was not British, he was in fact from New Zealand. An unforgivable mistake on my part. Sorry, Bret.

School is Overrated

So we went and saw Clash of the Titans the other night. It was pretty cool except the acting was a little wooden. Sorry Michelle, couldn't resist. To give you a little taste of how mild my opinions actually are, let me share with you a little excerpt of a review of the movie that I read on one of my Varry Sekrit Internet Haunts:

"There’s nothing subtle, complex, or witty about this film in the slightest. The best non-CGI element was Mads Mikkelsen, who unfortunately has to deal with a heavily-cliched character. Not even considering the original, this just feels like it was slapped together and is capitalizing on the God of War frenzy. Compared to the original, however, it just gets worse. Perseus is now a brooding anti-hero, Hades is once again erroneously portrayed as the devil, Calibos is relegated to a ridiculous and shallow caricature of vengeance, Medusa is just one big bloody joke, and the whole movie is overflowing with this forced subtext about militant gnosticism (the complaint being that it was forced and spoon-fed to the audience every two minutes). Io was a pointless addition, as were the Djinn characters. To be frank, there was something about the overall film I found insulting, but I can’t put my finger on it. Maybe it’s because I’m going through a Greek Mythology class right now." -Rocky

Probably all true, but would have put it in milder language. Whether or not it was mythologically correct, the Kraken was pretty brilliant all around, as were the parts with the pegasus. Plus, the costumes! Not sure how I feel about the guys with little tunics, but Io's and Andromeda's clothes were awesome. Even though Io was a contradiction just being there.

Anyway! As Michelle said, Easter was yesterday. A little while back we decided that we were going to get each other presents $5 or under on all the holidays like St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, etc. It's a good thing posters are only $5. And right now I'm wearing these blue hoop earrings that Michelle got for me at Wal-Mart (the best place to get useless accessories - but the earrings are cute).

This weekend, I'm going to take the ACT again. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm not fantastically prepared, but somehow I always get distracted when I sit down to study for it. It's less about smartness than about your problem-reading-and-comprehending skills, since the questions aren't actually that hard, so whatever I do will probably not help me that much since I already know what's entailed. Last time I got 28 and this time I'm aiming for a 30. We'll see how that goes.

But as for now, it's time to go to my College Algebra class. NOT FUN. College algebra is like a pistol that my teacher is holding, and she's shooting logarithms at me, and they're burrowing painfully into my brain, doing a lot more harm than good. My motor functions, not to mention my memory storage capabilities, have been severely debilitated. Just so you know, there's blood everywhere.

-Amy

Not Doing Homework

It's the best! But only when you have a good reason to not be doing it, which I had. I talked to Angela on the phone today for almost an hour instead of studying for my French test, which I'm pretty sure I'm going to ace anyway (French is the only thing I ace in).

Michelle and I went to see Alice in Wonderland on Friday. Watching it and listening to the opinions afterwards made me realise that when it comes to movies I'm really pretty passive. In another, earlier time, I might have griped about how inaccurate the movie was to the book, and how lame it is that Johnny Depp is the star of like every Tim Burton movie ever. But honestly, I went there to be entertained. I was entertained. It was the same way with Percy Jackson, and all the Harry Potter movies. They're tons of fun, who cares about being close to the book? I read the books, they were good, but the movies are something else entirely. And as for the actual movie, it was quite well done. Admittedly, I would have liked anything that was better-done than the original Alice in Wonderland, which remains one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

Even though we saw the movie in a tiny cinema in a backwater town, they happened to be showing it in 3-D (only in Harrisonville are tickets to a 3-D movie hardly $8). I decided that I'd much rather watch movies the normal way. It was the same way with Avatar - the 3-D was distracting and it hurt my eyes trying to focus on several things that appeared to be at different distances but were really all on a flat plane. Three dimensions is cool in real life and cool on screen for about the first ten minutes. After that it's a bit of a drag. Sorry to be so prudish.

-Amy

Belated

Belated, now there's a descriptive word. Most particularly descriptive to me. For instance, over a week ago I finished Dune and promised to post a review of it the following day, but I didn't. Actually I forgot all about it. I have in fact read two books since I finished Dune. Lucky for you, I still remember it, which is more than I can say of some books that I've read more than once. It's called selective memory, and it's a curse.

So, Dune. Ever since I started reading science fiction, about two and a half years ago, I've been hearing about Dune. Authors sing Frank Herbert's praises, and dedicated sci-fi fans declare it's attributes from the internet's metaphorical mountaintops. So I went in expecting great things. It's always bad to have high expectations, I know, but I couldn't help it. If so many people love Dune, it's got to be good, right?

Well the answer to that question is no. I gave a little leeway in the beginning, thinking Mr. Herbert was just setting up the plot and the strangeness would die down after a while, but it never did. I was unsettled for the entire first half of the book and couldn't figure out why until I realised that the characters were like aliens - so little about them resembled human beings that there was no way to relate to anyone, and therefore no way to get into and enjoy the story. The problem with us humans is that we don't want to hear about non-humans and their emotions, because we simply can't understand them and don't care to try because it vexes us. even so, it might have been more involving if the characters weren't actually supposed to be humans.

Anyway, on to specifics. For the main character, we have Paul, who is a product of selective breeding, the Kwisatz Haderach, Muad'Dib, The Chosen One, etc., a fifteen-year-old boy who has been prepared for a life of leadership by his mother. His emotions and thought processes are so high, lofty, and intense that one can't help but be overwhelmed by Frank Herbert's astonishing and exhaustive use of adjectives in the descriptions of them. Mere humans are pawns, peasants, mindless parasites compared to him. He leads the Fremen, who are a race of people who live on a desert planet and survive with very little water, and we're led to believe that part of the process of him becoming such a great leader was his sudden procurement of the ability to see the future through a combination of willpower and drugs. Did I hear that right? Somehow, yes. In any case, because he can do whatever he wants, Paul has a son by the time he's sixteen. The son is killed a year later, and though I certainly looked hard for it, I found absolutely no grief from Paul for this son that he supposedly loved. Either he's got some serious seventeen-and-already-a-dad issues, or the last semblance of humanity just flew out his ear.

Wash, rinse, repeat with every single character, to some degree or other. It's hard to read a book where at least four of the main protagonists are complete Mary Sues.

But on to other things. One of the only reasons that I kept reading Dune is because of the amazing amount of worldbuilding that Herbert did. I always have looked at those sort of people in awe. You know, the ones who build three languages and six races and twenty religions and a caste system and geographical features and make sure all the rivers are in the right places in relation to the mountains. Frank Herbert is that sort of person. His description of Arrakis, the desert planet that most of the book takes place on, was really involved and interesting, as was the way he described the huge sandworms, and how the people made stillsuits to recycle bodily moisture so that they could survive on so little water. And the appendices! They were the most interesting of all. I found the one about terraforming especially interesting, because it seemed like Frank Herbert had done all the research and quite a bit of gardening himself in the making of it. He also talked about how the beginning of space travel had such a drastic effect on religion and how leaders all over the world coped with it. It was extremely engrossing.

In short, Dune began with a terrific premise and then was executed badly. It's a shame, really. I had an argument about it with Joseph already. He's a big fan.

-Amy