Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Thank the Generic Ethereal Being!

As a Michigander, I am entitled to be excited about above 40 degree weather. I was throughly excited to leader my dorm today and find that a lot of the snow around campus is melting. Sure it's exposing all the ugly, dirty snow and there's slush everywhere, but the end result is worth the wait.

Its interesting how just a few days of "warm" weather can make people feel less stressed and feel a little bit happier. At least, that's how it works for me. After this bitterly cold winter, with the blizzards and sub zero temperatures, 40-some degrees feels wonderful, and today has been a pretty cheery day. Although, the blizzards did give us a convient snow day the day after the Super Bowl.

Anyway, I'm really glad it's finally transisting into spring, because that means we'll all be able to shed the heavy winter clothes, boots, gloves, scarves and coats. Just knowing I won't have to jumble around my heavy winter coat in the lecture halls is exciting. I brought out my spring jacket for the first time this year, and I even opened the window because my room was too warm. Of course, then it got too cold, but that's beside the point.

Another thing that the coming of spring means is Spring Break.. which is in a week and a half, and also the end of this semester, after which I'll be able to move back home for a few months of summer bliss.

So, bless the sun and it's brilliant rays of light, defeating the vicious snow and making it run down the hills on Western's campus, and huzzah for Spring Break.. in a week and a half!!

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Hairspray 2007

A few minutes ago, I used imdb.com to look at the castings for the movie Hairspray, set to be in theatres in July of this year.

I've never heard of the girl playing Tracy, and since Hairspray is the only thing listed on her profile on IMDB, I'm assuming this is her breakout movie. Let's just hope she can do it.

An interesting casting is John Travolta playing the part of Tracy's mother, the over weight, gruff voiced woman who forgot about her dreams and has spend the last several years of her life washing other people's clothes. I was looking at stills from the movie, and it's obvious they beefed him up with computers. It looks a little TOO fake for me, but we'll see when the movie actually comes out.

Michelle Pfeiffer is set to play Mrs. Vantussel. I don't have much to comment on that, except that I hope she can sing.

Zac Efron is set to play Link, the teenage heart throb for Tracy, and they fall in love, blah blah blah. Apparently, this kid was in High School Musical, which I saw, and failed to see its appeal. So we'll have to wait and see on that one.

One person I am excited about is Queen Latifa playing the part of Seaweed's mom. Queen Latifa is a powerful singer and she's just amazing... my reference being her performance in the movie version of Chicago.

And so I am brought to the final comment I have about the casting for this movie.

Amanda Bynes, set to play the part of Penny. When I was younger, much younger, I used to enjoy her show on Nickelodeon. As I grew up, she seemed to be more annoying, joining the leagues of teenage actresses like Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan. I've read that she isn't a part girl, so she's a "role model," but that doesn't mean she's a good actress. She seems to play the same character in all of her movies, and her "personality" (whether its her real personality or her on screen personality) always comes through the character, and is always the same. I guess I could see her playing the part of Penny, but that brings me to my final question...

Can Amanda Bynes sing? And well?

Penny is a great character in the story of Hairspray, and her singing should be powerful, and show her personality.

I'll have to wait until July to find out how these faces play together in this movie. I haven't seen the 1988 version of the movie, but I have seen the stage production, which was amazing by the way. I really hope they can pull it off and make a great movie. Then maybe Amanda Bynes can redeem herself in my mind.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Thanks for Wasting Time

Someone in my English class inspired me to write in here today. Its a female, and I'm not sure what year of college she's in. I would guess between freshman and junior. She has those glasses that darken when she's in the sun, so when I see her everyday as I walk to my seat, I think about how they just don't look good on her. Maybe on someone else, but not her.

Now... I'm not trying to be mean...

Oh wait. Maybe I am.

Anyway, she's one of those people. I know there's several different definitions of those people, and I'm about to explain her's.

She like to express her opinion, a lot. More than anyone else in my class cares to hear. She's way too overly friendly, especially at 10 in the morning. Don't get me wrong, I believe everyone should have an opinion about at least ONE thing, and should express it in a healthy way, as well as appropriate, but don't press this opinions on other people.

My example for this is when my professor was lecturing about the old world religions, such as paganism. She was comparing aspects of paganism to protestants. This, of course, angered the girl in my class. She rose her hand and started to question just about everything the professor was saying. She'd also say things like "Well... protestants don't really do that.. that's mostly CATHOLICS." I really wanted to turn around and tell her to shut her mouth, but I resisted. Anyway, so this went on for a while, and you could tell the professor was getting annoyed. I was, too.

When she finally closed her mouth, another girl raised her hand. She turned to look at the girl, and she said, "I grew up catholic, and switched to protestant. I really don't think you should be talking about other religions, especially when you haven't studied them." I wanted to yell "THANK YOU." to her, but again, I resisted.

Today, she was apparently talking to the TAs about something... I believe it was the Critical Theories about folk tales or something like that. The TAs mentioned what the girl had said, and I just shook my head. Because of course, this girl knows WAY more than graduate students. Obviously.

Yeah right.

Later on in class, the girl was talking to the guy next to her about something completely unrelated to what we were lecturing about. I glanced over and saw a girl across the room glaring at the girl. She then said, loud enough for me to hear, "shut up!" The girl was obviously being a distraction, because you could hear her over the TA who was lecturing. Apparently she didn't get the hint that we were resuming lecture.

I think she would be what I like to call "socially challenged." There's many traits that can qualilfy people to be put in this group, and her insessant talking and loud proclamation of her opinions gets her put in there without question.

That's my little rant.

Friday, February 9, 2007

Little Red Riding Hood

I was doing some reading for my English class in a book called "The Classic Fairy Tales." The introduction talks about the uses of fairy tales, and how they've changed over the years. It also talks about the different opinions about the female characters in the stories, with quotes by feminists and other people.

The fairy tale I was supposed to read was about Little Red Riding Hood. There were several versions of the story in that chapter. I've decided to share it with you all.

The Little Girl and the Wolf
-As told by James Thurber

One afternoon a big wolf waited in a dark forest for a little girl to come along carrying a basket of food to her grandmother. Finally a little girl did some along and she was carrying a basket of food. "Are you carrying that basket to your grandmother?" asked the wolf. The little girl said yes, she was. So the wolf asked her where her grandmother lived and the little girl told him and he disappeared into the wood.


When the little girl opened the door of her grandmother's house she saw that there was somebody in bed with a nightcap and nightgown on. She had approached no nearer than twenty-five feet from the bed when she saw that it was not her grandmother by the wolf, for even in a nightcap a wolf does not look any more like your grandmother than the Metro-Goldwyn lion looks like Calvin Coolidge. So the little girl took an automatic out of her basket and shot the wolf dead.
Moral: It is not so easy to fool little girls nowadays as it used to be.




Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Metaphorical Waffle Maker

Being blonde, I believe that we're all entitled to having at least a few "blonde moments" in our life time.

One of mine occurred not too long ago. It was Saturday morning, and my roommate and I walked to the cafeteria that was near our dorm. I kind of have a craving for waffles that morning. The caf has two waffle irons that you pour the batter in, close it and turn it. Then a timer starts and you wait patiently while your waffle is cooked.

That morning, one of the waffle makers opened up, so I went on over to it and grabbed the container of yellow liquid. In my defense, nothing was labeled. I know, it's not a very good defense. I've made waffles before.

Anyway, I started to pour the yellow liquid into the waffle maker, and something didn't really seem right. It was thinner than I thought waffle batter should be. My roommate stood next to me and said, "Uh, I think that's butter." I stopped pouring and suddenly realized my grave error.

I poured butter into the waffle iron. Again, in my defense, why was there a pourable container full of melted butter just sitting on the table? Still, not a good defense, but I have to save at least a little shred of dignity.

The workers in the cafeteria came over and started laughing. I apologized profusely. I really did feel bad, because now they had to clean up my stupid error. I said to one of the workers, "I feel really bad! And I feel kinda stupid..."

His response: "Well, I can help you with the first one, but there's not much I can do about the second." I looked up at him and he was laughing. So in shame, I grabbed a bowl of cereal instead and sat down in my chair on the other side of the caf.

I felt like I should probably never go near the waffle makers ever again. I expressed this concern out loud, and my roommate reasoned that I would never do it again because now I knew which was batter and which was butter. I didn't feel convinced however, and still thought I shouldn't use the waffle maker any more.

(Here's where you can laugh at me to your heart's desire.)

I was telling my friend this story on AIM, and she turned it into a metaphor and gave me some advice.

She said that just because I had one bad experience with the waffle maker didn't mean that I should never make waffles ever again. I would be denying myself something that I truly enjoy. She suggested that next time I have breakfast in that caf, I should make waffles, and do it right, thus conquering my fear of the waffle maker.

So maybe I will. Next weekend when I have to get breakfast from the caf, I'll make a waffle, and I won't screw it up this time.

That's all for now.


PS If you can't figure out the metaphor.. well.. I'm sorry for you.

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

Late Night Contemplations

I was talking about this with a friend, and she told me to put it in here.

Last night I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep, without much success. It was one of those nights were tons of random thoughts are flying around in your mind and you can't turn them off. Here's my train of thought, which brought about my thoughts about death.

My roommate was watching 'Sex in the City.' The main character, Cari, is a writer for a newspaper. She was writing about something, and the line was "I think the last time anyone enjoyed the 69 position was in 1969."

This line was kinda hanging out in my head so I thought, "Will I be alive in 2069?" I'm bad at math, so yes I had to think about it. And I determined that I would be in my late 70s or early 80s. Then I began to think about what it would be like to be 80 years old, looking back on my life. At this point in my life, I can't even imagine being that old. I'm only 18, and that's not until 70 some years in the future. I have no idea how my life will turn out. Will I have kids? Will I be married? Will I have grandchildren? All these thoughts that no one can really know the answer to at this point in their life.

Then I began to think about life in general. I thought about how people can look at situations after they happen and analyze them. They can replay them over and over in their minds. That's why people think that the human brain is so fascinating. As humans, we have the ability to think about thinking.

I don't really know how to describe this. Each of us have our own worlds. We know the people around us, and we're conscious of some of the things happening around us, in the generalist sense. But I don't think any of us think about how much is really going on at one moment in time. I'm using a college campus as my reference. There are so many people on a college campus, going on with their lives not aware of what else is going on. But there are tons of college campuses, high schools, businesses etc. Its a little overwhelming trying to think about how much is really going on. But it's remarkable that we even have the capability to think about that.

Which brought me to think about death. I'm not a religious person. I don't know what can happen after we die. It scares me a little bit.

We can think back on situations after they happens. But that can't happen after we die. It's not scientifically proven that humans have souls. So does everything just stop? Does everything just go black? But we can't dwell on the darkness because our minds probably stop working once our hearts stop beating. I know this is a tad bit morbid. But its just what I was thinking about. I've believed in reincarnation for a few years now, but still, no one really knows what happens.

Anyway, I've lost my words I had on this subject, so I'll just close it with this:

We shouldn't fear death. Especially since we don't know what happens after we die. That's why we should make the most of our time here. I may be somewhat of a hypocrite for saying that, but I believe it's true.

Monday, February 5, 2007

Snow Day

I think all of Kalamazoo County was closed due to weather conditions today. Of course, I didn't find out Western Michigan University was closed until 8:30 this morning, in which I had to call a friend to find out. I wasn't even in my dorm room, I was at a friend's apartment, sleeping on the floor with six other people.

Of course, once we found out we had a snow day, none of us could get back to sleep since we got about four hours of sleep.

Ok, I really don't have a point in writing this.

-- -- -- -- --

I'm in the process of writing a satirical and modernized version of Cinderella. I was doing my reading for my English class, and it sort of inspired me to write that.

I also have a random interest in satires... currently.

Anyway, there ya go. I'll hopefully get it up soon. Depends on how soon and how quickly I write it.

Saturday, February 3, 2007

Procrastination

So one would think that on a day when it's snowing so much that you can no longer discern the road from the sidewalk, would be a perfect day to get some major homework done for class.

Or not.

I have not done one productive thing today, save for showering, which is an accomplishment.

So far, my roommate and I have watched:

"A Knight's Tale"
"10 Things I Hate About You"
"Father of the Bride"

And later on, starting at 8, "Legally Blonde" is on, which I have to watch... because I like that movie a lot. I do have quite a bit of reading to get done, and with the Superbowl on tomorrow, I most likely won't have time to do it then. And since my roommate finally turned off the TV at the start of "Father of the Bride Part II," I thought it would be a good idea to write about how much I procrastinate, rather than actually do something productive.

-- -- -- --

The Marriam-Webster and Garfield dictionary defines procrastination as thus:

procrastinate: to put off usu. habitually doing something that should be done; dawdle; delay

So, to really be considered a procrastinator, you have to constantly be putting off homework, chores, work etc. That would make being a procrastinator more of a condition, like being an alcoholic or a smoker.

I ask: Can one be addicted to procrastinating?

This is a hard question for me to answer, because I've always been one to feel guilty if I put off, or don't do all together, a homework assignment or project. But could someone actually get pleasure out of not doing their homework, and to become a chronic "not-doing-homework-er"? Perhaps those kids in high school who never did their homework were chronic procrastinators. Instead of simply not wanting to do it, they put it off so much that they walked into class the next time without anything to turn in.

I suppose this is possible.

As much as I would like to ramble about this subject some more, I truly feel like I should do something productive this evening... before "Legally Blonde" is on.