It’s December, and holy calzone (and by the way, the actual Italian pronunciation is cal-zone-ie, not cal-zone, which is the AMERICAN way of pronouncing it) it’s finals week, and Friday is my house’s Christmas party, and the next day I’m going home for winter break. Which will include: working at (insert name of major discount retailer here), visits from my Grandparents, and oh yeah…..

My school is PLAYING IN THE ROSE BOWL!!!!! YES!!!! (This was the only good picture I could find that represented both schools).

And the hilarious part is, they’re playing my Dad’s favorite team (it’s not actually his school, but since he grew up in Ohio, and Ohio State is the good college football team in Ohio, that’s who he roots for).

And it it’s not obvious, my school is University of Oregon, which has a pretty good football team, despite having a new coach this year…….

So, I have a lot to look forward to this break (as long as it doesn’t snow. Please, Please don’t let it snow).

What does do your holidays look like?

(In no particular order, just the order I thought of them in).

1. Psych. Shawn and his best friend since childhood, Gus have a Psychic detective agency….except Shawn’s not really a Psychic. Shawn’s father, a retired cop, started teaching him skills to become a cop since he was born practically…except that becoming a cop didn’t work out for Shawn, so he and Gus started a Psychic detective agency…..and they’re the only ones who know that Shawn has really keen observational skills, not psychic powers. (This is just like Monk, only with two cute younger detectives. And it takes place in Santa Barbara).

2. Ally McBeal. Ally McBeal is a woman who is a lawyer in a Boston lawfirm. In the first episode, she joins the firm of Richard, who she went to law school with….and as it turns out, her ex-boyfriend, Billy, works there too!!! (This show is SO GOOD.)

3. Star Trek: The Next Generation(TNG). Captain Jon-Luc Picard of the Enterprise, Commander William Riker, Counsellor Deanna Troi, Lieutenant Commander Data, Lieutenant Worf, Lieutenant Geordi LaForge, and Chief Medical Officer Beverly Crusher….They’re a family, and they’re actions and adventures are amusing and entertaining. (I love when Wil Wheaton plays Dr. Crusher’s son Wesley Crusher).

4. Star Trek: Voyager. This takes place about the same time as TNG, but it is the only series with a female captain – Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Starship Voyager, played by Kate Mulgrew. Unlike TNG, however, Voyager has been thrown from the Alpha Quadrent, where Earth is, to the Delta Quadrent, where it will take them an estimated 75 years to get home. (Captain Janeway ROCKS!!!).

5. Mercy. This in many ways reminds me of Ally McBeal EXCEPT: The main character is Nurse Veronica Callahan, who in the first episode is back at Mercy Hospital in New Jersey after working in an Army hospital in Iraq. While Veronica is married, though, on her second day back, the doctor she had an affair with in Iraq takes a position at Mercy Hospital. (I orginally started watching this show because Kate Mulgrew was in it, but she’s not in it very much….and I really, really like this show ).

6. Heroes. People with superpowers…..and the normal people that interact with them. Also THE COMPANY that tries to control them. And SYLAR, the SERIAL KILLER, who murders people and takes there super powers. And can also tell if a watch is the tiniest bit off. (Fine. I started watching this because Zachary Quinto’s in it. And he plays Sylar. So bad, but so good).

7. GLEE. A high school Glee club’s struggle to survive in a sports/Sue Sylvester dominated world. (The plot isn’t that original, but the music’s GREAT).

8. 30Rock. Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) and her boss, Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin), as well as other characters who makee TGS: with Tracy Jordan. ( I <3 Tina Fey. And she and Alec Baldwin are SO funny).

Other favorite shows include: “Veronica Mars”, “Beauty and the Geek”, “Style by Jury”, and “Sex and the City”.

So, what do you watch?

 

It seems like lately I have all these big, important questions rolling around in my head. Today in Spanish, when we had to write about the generation gap, and things that are different now than in, say, our grandparents time, and one of the girls in my groups said that there is more violence now than there was when our grandparents were our age, I had to disagree.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like violence. But war, like monogamy, is human nature. Back in the day, caveman clans used to fight each other. One of my other classes this quarter is War in the Modern World Part 1: 1500-1945. There have always been wars going on.  Perhaps it seems like more now because we have the media to bring it into our homes and our everyday lives. Except when we really try to keep it out. I mean, we’ve talked about several instances in History where people’s NOSES were cut off. That’s really not acceptable to us anymore. And yet gunman have invaded high schools and colleges across the country. People are killed in suicide bombings in Iraq. When we don’t get along, we fight, it’s our nature.

Likewise, it is also human nature to pair off. Why would people pair off if their wasn’t some sense in it? (Actually, I don’t know of anyone who’s anti-marriage). The point being, though, can we really not get into wars, and lead peaceful lives if violence is human nature?

Maybe we COULD lead peaceful lives, however, if violence wasn’t such a part of our culture: boxing, wrestling, Halo 3.

On a side note: I don’t really feel like knitting much lately. I want to sew. Sadly, my sewing machine is…at my parents house. But I’d like to make a top (like a blouse) in a day or two, not a month or two.

I am BACK AT SCHOOL!!! So glad to be back in my college town, living in an ALL SINGLE ROOMS co-op. No more pot-headed roommate!!!

I was going to post all 100 movies this summer, and while the list was done long before the end of the summer, that obviously didn’t happen. I kind of got busy….not that I’m going to be LESS busy now, or anything.

11.The Princess Diaries – Following the death of the father she was in contact with but never met, Anne Hathaway meets her grandmother (Julie Andrews) and finds out that her father was actually prince of Genovia…making her heir to the throne. This was the movie that made me an Anne Hathaway fan, and in my opinion, none of her movies since this one have been as good. ****

12.The Sound of Music – Julie Andrews plays Maria, a woman preparing to become a nun who is sent to be Governess for Captain von Trapp, played by Christopher Plummer. Upon arriving at estate, it is discovered that the retired Navy Captain “runs the house as though he is on one of his ships again.” Maria brings music back into the lives of the children and the Captain while they fall in love. One word: Classic. ***

13.Mary Poppins – Julie Andrews is Mary Poppins, a nanny who arrives to take care of Jane and Michael Banks. The trio have adventures with Bert (Dick van Dyke). Many, many classic songs such as “Sister Suffragette”, “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”, “Chim Chim Cher-ee” and “Let’s Go Fly a Kite”, among many, many others.When I think of my childhood, I kind of think of this movie. I’m not sure why, because I didn’t have a nanny. ***

14. South Pacific – During the American occupation of islands in the South Pacific in WWII,  Lt. Joe Cable and Nellie Forbush struggle with love and racisim. Nellie is in love with Emile de Becque, a French planter who ran away to the South Pacific after killing a man in France. Joe struggles with falling in love with a Tonkinese girl despite the fact that he is engaged to a girl “back home”. Racial prejudices of Joe

15.The Princess Bride – “A nice mix of romance and comedy, mostly comedy.” –Viv Buttercup becomes engaged to the (unbeknownst to her) evil Prince Humperdink following the news the man she loves has died. While on her morning ride, Buttercup is kidnapped. FABULOUS. Except Wesley is cuter at the beginning of the movie when he doesn’t have that little ponytail. SO many quotable lines. ****

Sorry it’s been so long but my life has been hectic, crazy, down-right insane. I have a family reunion going on… well for two days now at our house and it is a ZOO.

But that’s beside the point because today, we went for a walk in the DARK and when cars drove by, we pretended to be aliens. We had these headlamps on… and we made weird noises and waved our arms. I am convinced that I have the coolest family ever.

Quote of the day “It’s the only thing my pet rubadub will eat, it’s like a half bunny, half broccoli type thing.” (talking about cucumbers)

Random word I just thought of: Albatross… real meaning: some sea-gull like bird, cooler meaning: an extremely secret-code language, only spoken in a fort.

So I went on this trip to Idaho right? Well on the way there, we used walkie-talkies, and each time I spoke I used a different code name… Among the best: Flying elephant, rainbow giraffe, fuzzy raptor, sweet lemon, and the quiet orange

Go walkie-talkies.

1. Ally McBeal – my mom used to watch this show when it was on TV, and it’s too bad I can’t find more of it on DVD now – it’s so GOOD! Ally McBeal is a lawyer who, on the first episode gets a job in a law office where her ex-boyfriend happens to work. It’s one of those shows that has lots of witty dialogue, which I love, and is really funny.

2. Heroes – I started watching this on Hulu, maybe because it has Zachary Quinto and Kristen Bell in it…but it’s also pretty good. It’s about people with superpowers, and how they use them, and Zachary Quinto plays Sylar, a serial killer who kills people and takes his powers, so that as the show progresses he becomes increasingly powerful. It’s also about how the various characters use their super powers – for good or for evil.

3. Psych – I also started watching this on Hulu, at Marina’s recommendation. I love shows like Monk and Veronica Mars (shows that solve mysteries and crimes), and this show is like Monk, only the detective is a psychic, and cuter and younger than Monk. And somewhat wittier.

4. Taylor Swift’s CD Fearless – Taylor Swift seems to be known as a country singers, but her songs on this CD are pop-y-er than that. I love her videos and this CD is awesome.

I’ve had this rolling around in my head all through my seven hour shift at the local branch of the Big Box Store I work at. I want to get it out.
Today I went to a memorial service for a boy I went to school with who died last week. He was the second kid in my class to die, and I wasn’t too suprised, and yet I walk around like Luke Skywalker in “Star Wars Episoed IV: A New Hope” after Obi-wan dies, and I’m thinking, “I can’t believe he’s gone. Wasn’t it just yesterday that we were in first grade together, and he called me Short Stuff, and I didn’t know how to respond to that until I figured out to call him Short Stuff Yourself (he was only like an inch taller than me in first grade) that he stopped. And suddenly I’m a year out of high school, he’s the second kid from my class to die (although it wasn’t that much of a shock with either, really – the other guy had leukemia). And I go to his memorial service and all these people are sharing great memories of him. Like my mom – she helped out with ceramics in my first grade class (I don’t remember very much of this). This kid had art skills that made my mom, who has her BA in art, jealous. The service was a time to see how he had touched all these peoples lives, and how he had been able to bridge the gap between our generation and the adults around us. And so I’ve been thinking about how I don’t know of any high school classes who’ve lost two guys only a little more than a year out of high school. Life here is short.
R.I.P., T.E.

You know what I wish? I wish that boys could get rid of their crazy attachment to their masculinity and just do things that girls do. I mean, girls aren’t to “womanly” to, you know, work out, or like, punch someone in the face.

I personally would love it if a boy was comfortable enough with himself to try on a few dresses or skirts or let us girls do his hair or his makeup…

I love boys like that…

And some of them ARE like that! Like one boy who came over to our house and proceeded to try on every dress we own, and I bet his girlfriend loves him for that!

It reminds me of last Christmas where we received these makeup kits and ended up doing makeup on our dad… it may have been the best moment ever.

One thing that I have yet to do, is to paint a boy’s fingernails… I would love to do that. So much.

So here’s my point… I love a man to get in touch with his feminine side, after all, girls can grunt and beat their chest without feeling embarrassed.

I apologize for me thinking everything is funny right now but I’ve got to tell you about a tradition I’ve started…

Okay so our neighbors are pretty wealthy and they tend to keep to themselves and their dolls right? So we, being the wonderful neighborly neighbors we are, play pranks on them… but don’t worry, really harmless ones.

So this is our Summer tradition…

• Find a random food (previous foods include: a brownie, a tortilla, a corn dog, and a piece of bread)
• Draw a face on it using any means necessary (felt pen, puff paint, other food like grapes or ketchup)
• Write a little message (“Senior corn dog says ‘eat your vegetables”, “Hello belly button”, “turn that frown upside down!” “MUAHAHAHahahahaha!)
• Leave it on their front door step
• (Next morning) Put binoculars to good use (one time we did this to the house sitters!)

What are some harmless and hilarious pranks that you’ve done?

You know what I just realized now that “I can see clearly now the rain has gone”? I realized:

1. That one, duh it rains a lot it’s Oregon
2. I think I like the rain… yep I do
3. Dance party

So it’s okay if I’m confused for a while, because not everything is black and white. I don’t have to understand the world. I don’t have to predict the emotion that my actions will elicit. I can’t control what other’s feel about me.

I’m just trying to live life to the fullest you know?

Random word that I just thought of: “Falsetto” Real meaning: Man high voice. Cooler meaning: a thing you think  you can sit on, but you can’t

Random quote: “I wonder how many guinea pigs he has. Maybe it’s zero”