Sank you, sank you, sank you, Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto?

I watched the Oscars this year for three reasons: 1. for Kate Winslet to win best actress, 2. for Hugh Jackman, and 3. for the fashion. Oscars- you did not let me down.

Lets start with the best dressed category of the evening.

Kate Winslet looked absolutely stunning. From her hair to her dress to her jewelry- it was all very elegant. I loved the detailing of the dress, the back was quite beautiful, the fit was fantastic and she carried it well. Her makeup was very natural which is good, because some celebs tend to go overboard and look trashy.  Hugh Jackman looked quite dashing (when does he not) in his custom made three piece tux and I must say, he did a fine job hosting.

Oh Anne Hathaway. She is quite possibly one of the most naturally gorgeous women in Hollywood right now. Her dress was just he right amount of sparkle and she made a wise move concerning jewelry: sometimes less is more. Her hair was fantastic, her makeup a soft smoky eye (not overdone) with a punch of color in the lipstick. Her elegance and poise helped with the number one rule of awards fashion- you wear the dress, the dress does not wear you. I honestly can not find one flaw with this ensemble. Penelope Cruz looked breathtaking in her vintage Balmain gown complete with tulle and lace. The form-fitting bodice really accentuated her great figure,  her jewelry was quite fitting, and the whole thing was tied together nicely with an elegant up-do. I think the main reason for liking this dress has to be the back story: she found this vintage dress (60 years old) eight years ago and said she would like to wear it one day. This year she decided it was as good a time as any, so she went looking for it, amazingly enough found it, and wore it last night. That right there is unbelievable.

I absolutely loved Taraji P. Henson’s dress. The fit was incredible, the color suited her skin tone nicely, the train was just the right length, and the overlapping material really added for a dramatic effect. Her makeup was very natural looking, with a nicly done smoky eye. Her hair was also a perfect choice, as an up-do would have been a bit much for this outfit. And that necklace. My gosh I love that necklace. She made a smart move with short earrings, and no rings, letting the necklace be the bold piece. The red handbag was the perfect splash of color.

I love Natalie Portman so so much. Her dress was a very nice fit, the color looked good on her, and she showed the appropriate amount of cleavage (take a note SJP!). Her hair was lovely and the jewelry was a nice touch, though a necklace wouldn’t have hurt anything. Nicole Kidman’s dress, in my opinion, was one of my favorites of the night. She always has a little extra something to her dresses (remember the peacock dress she wore- the feathers were actually her idea. Brilliant.) and I have always thought she looks good. The only change I would have made is to maybe make the dress a darker color for her skin tone- which is downright beautiful. This color begins to wash her out; a darker dress would have definitely made her skin and hair pop. That said, I don’t really see anything else wrong… I am absolutely loving it.

I absolutely adore the back of Robin Wright Penn’s dress. She looked beautiful last night- hair, dress, jewelry, makeup all earned an A+. Sean looked okay; I wasn’t crazy about his jacket and I prefer the bow tie to the regular tie. All black is a risky move, but he pulled it off. Next was Heath Ledger’s sister (on the right). I loved, loved, loved her dress. The fit was great, the cleavage wasn’t slutty, and she carried it well.

Tina Fey looked quite beautiful last night. Her dress was the right amount of sparkle and her jewelry was rightfully kept to a minimum. Her hair was in a nice up-do. Steve Martin looked nice in his tux. Daniel Craig looked sinfully beautiful in his tux. One of the hottest men in the whole show.

I know I am one of the very, very few, but I actually liked Miley Cyrus‘ dress. This poor girl can’t win for losing. The fit was beautiful and she carried it well. I liked the layering and sparkle, and the belt added an interesting twist to the dress. Her hair was age-appropriate in a fun up-do. Her jewelry was a great accent and not overbearing. Overall I really liked it. Virginia Madsen also looked very elegant in her red Kevan Hall gown. The fit was beautiful and the train added a bit of fun to the back. I could go either way on the belt- didn’t add much to the dress (it sort of blends right in) and if you took it away the dress wouldn’t be lacking anything.

Marion Cotillard took a big risk in this dress. And it worked for her. I liked it- the craziness from the waist down, the bodice from the waist up. Her hair was great too. She is beautiful- I loved the complete look.

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Now lets get to the “almost there” category.

I thought Jennifer Aniston looked absolutely beautiful in her Valentino gown. The fit was great, the length was perfect, and her lack of jewelry worked in her favor. The only drawback? Her hair. I think a straighter style would have suited this dress best. That or a fun up-do. Seeing as she was going to be standing awkwardly close to those Brangelina people, many said this was her chance to knock it out the park. I think the gown was lovely and she was just focused on being herself. Whats done is done, and she was just there to do her part not try to win anyone back. I think she deserves an A+. Evan Rachel Wood also looked quite dazzling in her Elie Saab haute couture gown. The fit was fantastic and the ruffle train was fun. The detailed bodice also looked nice. My only two problems with her ensemble were her hair and the gown color. I don’t know why, but I didn’t really care for the up-do. At least the front. And with the color I think there is a tiny bit of a Nicole Kidman washing out going on.

Zac Efron, you almost had me. Almost. Why would you do that to your hair? And please explain that bow tie immediately. Vanessa Hudgens looked good from the kneecaps up. I really, really, really, really hate the mermaid dress. Really hate it. You guys were so close!

I don’t know what it was, but there was something about Freida Pinto’s dress that I didn’t like. I actually can’t make up my mind if I liked it or not. I think it is the sheer overlay on the bottom. Although I do admit she is a beautiful woman and that color looked great on her. I do know what I don’t like about Marisa Tomei’s outfit. Everything from the waist down. Blah.

Reese Witherspoon is a beautiful person, and one of my favorite actresses. This is simply a case of an ill-fitting dress. The colors are beautiful together and they look great on her, but the weird midsection and awkward “straps” do nothing for her fantastic figure. Her eyeshadow was pretty though. And Queen Latifah, you know I love you. But your awkward bust line did nothing for your figure, and that sheer overlay has got to go.

Amanda Seyfried’s dress is pretty, but not beautiful. I think if it came down straight instead of that weird overlap it would have looked ten times better. And her hair should have been at least half up, if not in a fun up-do. Also a smaller necklace would have given a cleaner look. Between the necklace and the hair and the bow competing for attention, her whole ensemble looks a bit crowded.

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And for my second to last category- “You may have looked pretty, but I wasn’t impressed.”

Don’t get me wrong- these are two very beautiful people. And while Angelina Jolie did look elegant in this black gown, it was quite boring to me. Maybe if she would have put a necklace with it? I don’t know. It just seemed like your basic black dress. And Brad Pitt also looked good, but Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman just looked better.

Amy Adams looked beautiful and the color red was a daring choice considering her hair color. I think it was the way the material went up to the bust line… something about this dress seemed off. Robert Pattinson is overrated. And he looked high. And he looked like he was trying to hard to be the brooding type.

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And finally we find ourselves in the worst dressed category.

Hopefully I do not have to explain why Sophia Loren is the worst dressed of the night. Mickey Rourke looked downright awful in his outfit. And just a little tip Mickey- there is this thing they sell in stores, called shampoo, and it will do wonders for your hair. You should try it out sometime!

Sarah Jessica Parker’s ensemble is a hot mess. From the over-exposed cleavage to the crazy, volume-ized hair, this chick needs to calm the heck down. And someone please explain to me what possessed Phillip Seymour Hoffman to put that ridiculous hat on his head! Insanity.

Whoopie Goldberg’s dress was awful. The fit made her appear to be preggers, and that material! Sure, she can make it work, but it doesn’t scream Oscars as loud as it screamed cheap. And James Franco– just because you are downright beautiful does not mean you should wear an ill-fitting tux.

Heidi Klum you are beautiful. But your dress, huge earrings, and limp hair was not. That said, you have fantastic legs. Adrien Brody– I’m going to give you the same advice I gave to our pal Mickey. Shampoo. It’s not that expensive! Do us all a favor and go pick up a bottle, or two, or seven.

Is it just me, or does anyone else think Tilda Swinton looks like a wax figure? Her outfit was awful. Her hair was awful. All of it was just awful. As for Viola Davis, I think the colors are pretty, but the v-neck dip just made the dress look a tad cheap.

I love Meryl Streep. I did not love this gown. At all. I actually have no idea who Melissa Leo is, but I do know her gown is downright unflattering and one of the ugliest colors.

Beyonce’s dress is mermaid style, and I hate that. But it is definitely the fabric that earns her a spot on worst, and Vanessa a spot on almost there. Also, B’s hair isn’t the best. And Jessica Biel is looking a hot mess with the awkward fit and bow (are we calling it a bow? is that a half bow? A deflated bow?) hanging off her chest and the messy hair. Just not a good look.

So that is all I have. What did you think about the fashion and the show?

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[while waiting on the pizza]

Mother: “Okay, who has change?”

Me: “Obama.”

A post dedicated to the awesomeness that is Sesame Street.

First, I can not even begin to tell you how utterly amazing this find was:

Thank you Sara.

Next, I love me some Joshua Radin. And you should too. I also love me some Scrubs. Again, you should too. Joshua Radin and Zack Braff are quite good friends in real life (Zack has directed a few of Radin’s music videos) and Radin’s songs appear in Scrubs throughout the past few years. (Who could forget season three when Winter played during the funeral? Still makes my cry every time I watch it.)

In case you don’t watch Scrubs, JD (played by Braff) day dreams a lot and has an inner monologue which serves as a sort-of-but-not-always narrator of the show. The episodes usually end nicely with a little “lesson” (if you could call it that) or a “wrap up” by JD. The reason I am telling you all of this, and there is a point, is because on a recent episode of Scrubs, JD’s  day dreams were filled with the characters of Sesame Street. During the ending “wrap up” the theme song for Sesame Street played, but it was a newer version slowed down and set to the piano by Joshua Radin. And I must say, I find it really beautiful. I found a video of the show with the song in the background…

Sorry that you have to endure the dialogue. Not that there is anything wrong with the dialogue, but you know, it sort of overshadows the song, which was kind of the point of putting the video on here. If you click right here you can see a guy playing it, though the video is rather dark. Dark in the sense that there is very little light, not in the sense that they have taken all the innocence out of Sesame Street. Because that would just be sad.

No more studying! Please!

Found this on Facebook while taking a break from studying for French.

[The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?]

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen (x)
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien ()
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte ()
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling (x) Shouldn’t this count as seven?
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee (x)
6 The Bible – (x) not the entire thing, but a vast majority of the O.T. and the complete N.T.
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte () Its on my list!
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell (x)
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman ()
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens (x)
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott ()
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy ( )
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller () It’s on my list!
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare () I haven’t read some of the histories…
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier ()
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien ()
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk ( )
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger () It’s on my list!
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger () It’s on my list!
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot ( )
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell ( )
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald (x)
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens ( )
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy ( )
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams ( )
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh () It’s on my list!
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky ( )
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck (x)
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll (x) Well… In the process of reading it. Whatever, I’m still counting it.
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame ()
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy ()
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens ( )
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis ()
34 Emma – Jane Austen (x)
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen ()
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis () Read Voyage of the Dawn Treader. That one is fantastic.
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini – ()
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres ( )
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden (x)
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne (x)
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell (x)
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown () “I would take the Da Vinci Code. So I could BURN the Da Vinci Code.” Where is that quote from??
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez ()
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving ()
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins ()
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery ()
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy ()
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood ()
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding (x)
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan (x)
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel (x) I don’t remember much about this one though…
52 Dune – Frank Herbert ()
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons ()
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen ()
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth ( )
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon ( )
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens ( )
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley ( )
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon ()
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez ()
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck ( )
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov ( )
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt ( )
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold () It’s on my list!
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas (x)
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac (x) I’ve read part of it. It’s on my list!
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy ( )
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding ()
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie ( )
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville (x)
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens ( )
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker ( )
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett ()
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson ( )
75 Ulysses – James Joyce ( )
76 The Inferno – Dante ( x)
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome ()
78 Germinal – Emile Zola ( )
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray ( )
80 Possession – AS Byatt ( )
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens (X)
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell ( )
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker (x ) Again, part of it. I need to finish it…
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro ( )
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert ( )
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry ( )
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White (x)
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom ( )
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ( )
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton ( )
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad (x )
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery ()
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks ( )
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams ()
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole ( )
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute ( )
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas ( ) It’s on the list…
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare (x) I’ve read this many times…
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl () It’s on the list.
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo (x)

Additions:
Frankenstein – Mary Shelley ( )
Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson ( x)
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson ( )
The Time Machine – Jules Verne ()
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – Jules Verne
The Crucible – Arthur Miller ( )
Death of a Salesman – Arthur Miller ()
The Iliad and The Odyssey – Homer (x )

Perks of Being a Wallflower( ) It’s on my list!
Grimms Fairy Tales ()
And Then There Were None – Agatha Christie ()
A Separate Peace ( )
A History of Love ( )
Marley and Me – John Grogan ( ) Hahaha. No.
The Princess Bride – William Goldman () Tis on my list!

I’ve read 28 out of 115 unless I counted wrong. Which probably happened. This is insanity. I need to get to reading right now. How did you do?

“A pox o’ your throat! You bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog!”

I am using the extremely sick card again and posting this amazing video. Why is it amazing? Mainly because it is John Green talking for four minutes.

And he informs you on how to properly insult people.

And his home library kicks butt. I hope to own this many books one day.

In case you were wondering, he owns over 1,000 books. I only own a measly 323.

Guilty as charged…

I am extremely sick and there is nothing good to blog about, so this will have to do. Found on yahoo.com.

10 warning signs that you may be addicted to Facebook

1. Facebook is your home page. Ok, so far I’m not addicted. My homepage is Google.

2. You update your status more than twice a day. Not twice a day…usually.

3. You have over 500 “friends” half of whom you’ve never actually met. I have 400+ friends, most of whom I have met. A couple I haven’t, but as a general rule we need to have at least messaged a few times.

4. As soon as you step away from your computer you’re on FB on your phone. Sigh. True.

5. You are a FB stalker. You qualify as a FB stalker if you

a) click on someone’s profile more than once a day even if they haven’t messaged or tagged you in a photo. *blushes* fine, I admit I do this.

b) have dragged and dropped more than 3 FB photos (not from your own profile) Ok, haven’t done this…

c) actually go to a place mentioned on someone’s page in hopes of seeing them in real life…creepy! Ok, yeah, that is creepy. (For the record I haven’t done this.)

6. You change your profile picture more than a 12-year-old girl. Shut up.

7. You have checked your FB page while reading this article. Ha! Not! (Immediately after though…)

8. You clean up your “wall” so it looks like you spend less time on FB. That is just because I am O.C.D about my wall looking clean and neat.

9. You are a member of more than 10 groups and respond to every event invitation “attending” even if you have no intention of going. …Guilty.

10. You change your relationship status just to mess with people. I think I did this once, a long time ago.

So how did you do? Are you Facebook obsessed?

“It’s as Ann as the nose on plain’s face.”

Bonjour Internet! Ja m’appelle Improbable Fiction (votre prenom, Lauren). Comment allez-vous? Je vais très bien. Çe va? Non? Oui?

Why, yes (oui!). I did just type all of that in French. You see, I haven’t been posting lately as I have just started a new semester of school and I have been very busy moving in and going to class and speaking French. Seeing as I have only had three classes and therefore can not exactly put together many sentences beyond the basic greetings (see above), I shall be typing the rest of this in my native tongue- English. Don’t worry, There will most likely be some sort of French in each post from now on.

Where do I begin? Lets start with my room. Supposedly my roommate and I have one of the larger rooms in our dorm. Compared to my dorm room in Florida (well, the most recent I occupied) it is a tad smaller, though it does have more shelving space. Compared to my dorm room in England, I am living in a palace. I have a rather pretty view of the south green, and *gasp* the library. You could say I am very happy about this. My roommate is rather nice. She is also an education major, like me, though her focus is in music (she plays the flute and just recently beat out a grad student for first chair in ensemble. HA!) and mine is in English. She has rather long hair and always wears it in a braid. She is Jewish. She likes horses. Sometimes we sit and people watch from our windows. We see some very peculiar people. My desk is quite roomy compared to my previous desks, and I have my own closet. MY OWN CLOSET. I almost died when I saw that. One day, when I find the cord that connects my camera to my computer, I will upload pictures.

Just next door from me is my RA, Keith. He put up little things on everyone’s doors with their names on them, and up until two or so days ago I didn’t have one. We randomly met in the hall and he informed me that he would be putting my name on my door as soon as he stopped being lazy (which turned out to be ten minutes). He then asked me if he spelled “Lauren” correctly, or if there were any weird “y” or “i” letters in there. I told him there were, and he had a minor freak out. “There are! Oh man, I spelled it wrong? What is it- a y?” I then proceeded to tell him I was just kidding and we (Keith, my roommate, and I) all had a good chuckle.

Classes are rather interesting. Another good thing about my dorm is I am really close to my classrooms. The farthest is about a ten minute walk. My first class was on the Jewish Holocaust which should be really interesting. My next class was FRENCH, which I am very excited about. Though, I do have a lot of vocab to memorize before my first quiz on Mardi (Tuesday). I actually have French four days a week so that is fun. The only sort of downside is the class is taught by two different professors. On MW we have Madame Poindexter and on TR we have Mademoiselle Grace. They are both extremely nice though so I suppose I can handle it. Then I went to Linguistics which is going to be my most interesting (professor-wise not subject-wise) and most challenging. The class is taught by a Japanese man who… hasn’t quite mastered the English language (it is not his native language). Why do I point this out? Because it is a class all about the English language and how it all fits together and works. So, yeah. Good call getting a foreign speaking person to teach a class about the mechanics of speaking English. Every Tuesday I have a lecture with my professor, but every Thursday I have a “discussion” with my T.A. who is very smart and very confusing. Unfortunately this class is required for my major so there is nothing I can really do about it.

Then I have a MWF class called “Tools of Textual Analysis” (which we have agreed sounds dirty) and basically this is a fancy way of saying “Introduction to Lit” which I have already taken. So why am I taking this dirty class? Well the effing guy hasn’t approved my transfer credit yet. And if he fails to do so by Tuesday, I basically have to retake this class and I will not be having any of that. And then there is my Contemporary Jewish/American Lit class where my professor rocks because he assigned us a bunch of one-page papers, a “longer paper” (1500 words… I wrote at least five of those just in England last semester!), and we get to watch a bunch of movies (one in particular being School Ties which I have already seen… and own…because not only is is a good movie but MATT DAMON is in it, so we will be watching MATT DAMON in class which is pretty freaking awesome). And to top it all off, we don’t have class on April 10th because it is Passover. This class is going to be pretty darn amazing.

So hopefully that explains my absence from this glorious blog. I must now bid you adieu and finish my homework.

À bientôt!

If I could write a letter to me…

Dear Lauren,

We are starting this letter the summer before second grade because lets face it, you don’t remember anything before that. Except for that amazing blizzard you and your mother drove through to pick your grandmother up from the airport. Or that time you almost drowned in the pool. But obviously you lived, so second grade it is.

You will have a really fun summer. You will go on lots of picnics in your living room. You will spend a lot of your time listening to the Grease record and dancing around your house. This is a perfectly normal thing. You will also attempt to watch Grease 2, but your mother will make you turn it off because she happened to catch the sex-ed song. No, she isn’t mean; she just doesn’t want to tarnish your purity (you are, after all, only in second grade).

You will then move from Illinois to a place called Athens, Georgia. This is a really good thing. You will go to a school called Athens Christian, and it is best you know this now. You will throw up every single day because you hate it so much. This school will also fine you for every single tiny thing- field trips, books, dropping your pencil… everything. But do not worry, your parents (most likely out of fear that you will throw up the entire contents of your insides) take you out of this school and enroll you in Prince Avenue Christian School. This will be the best years out of your entire middle-high school life.

You will meet a girl named Taylor. She is very nice, and you should probably just ignore this girl, but you don’t. Because you are a nice person and you will be her (only) friend. It’s not your fault that her entire family turned out to be crazy. Once her family completely goes insane you will become best friends with a girl named Ashley. Don’t worry- her family is normal. You will spend almost every weekend at her house, especially when her family gets a four-wheeler. Speaking of this four-wheeler, you will knock down a tree in her back yard. First, don’t worry, her back yard consists of woods, and this is a very small, skinny tree. Second, her father will act mad, but only to freak you out. He could really care less.

You will take part in your church’s Christmas play each year. This will be a lot of fun. You will get to dress up as a present in one scene, then a gypsy type girl in another, and dance all around the sanctuary. And you won’t even get in trouble! You will also be in the school play, which will be a very unique experience. You will also go on your first motorcycle ride, which will probably be one of the most fun things you will ever get to do.

Although you love Georgia, you will eventually move to a place known as Rocky Mount, North Carolina. On your first night there your parents will take you out to eat and you will shout an inappropriate word very loudly in the restaurant. Don’t worry, mom and dad think this funny and don’t yell at you. You will enroll at school called Faith Christian. On your first day of school you will be greeted by a teacher named Mr. Smith (who terrifies you with his rather abrupt approach). He makes you complete an assignment everyone else is in the middle of, and expects a poster about Egypt due by the end of the week. You end up generally disliking him.

You will join the yearbook staff, which will be both fun and a pain in the a–. But it will be worth it in the end. You will also be forced to go to this place called Camp Willow Run. You will hate this place. A lot.

You will join the volleyball team and you will win second place in your division during your JV years. Varsity years are more focused on the fun of the game, as your team isn’t that good. You will also join the cheerleading squad. You will love the experience, pour hours of your time and money into it, but come to hate the majority of parents and students at your school through this. I am sorry, but they are complete jerks (most of them anyway).

You will only ever serve one detention, because of tardiness, and you will spend the entire thing doing homework.  You will get lots of academic awards which do mean a lot to you.

You will go to Mississippi and help hurricane victims. This will be one of the most amazing trips of your life, and you will constantly think about all the things you did while there. Oddly, Mr. Smith was on this trip, but he was bearable.

You will go on a Disney cruise for your 16th birthday where you will be brought up on stage to dance with the cast members. Don’t wear your pajamas. Wear normal clothes you hooligan.

You will go to a lot of movies with your friend Kath- so many that the movie ticket guy knows you. You will go to a movie (Charlie’s Angels) with a really nice guy…we will call him W, and you will have a lot of fun. And you will go bowling with a different guy… we will call him N. All in all you never get a boyfriend. Though it doesn’t seem it at the time, this turns out to be a good thing. You will get in a fight with a girl, who accused you of stuff you didn’t do, but such is life. You will end up forgiving each other the next year at that dreaded Camp Willow Run.

A lot of other stuff happens, but lets skip that and get to your college years. This is where life gets really interesting. You will go to a small Christian college, but live off campus for your first semester. You will have a 7:35 am class (what the heck were you thinking????) where you will end up meeting one of your best friends, who also lives off campus. You will both show up to class at least ten minutes early each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and talk a little. By the end of the semester you will be sitting together, planning out the dorm room you will be sharing the following semester.

Once that semester rolls around you will spend a lot of time sharing long life stories, drinking water (while she chugged Mt Dews), eating sandwiches from the café, and watching Friends. In fact, for the rest of your college life this will be how you get through your problems. Stories, water, tuna sandwiches, and Friends. You will also sneak a boy into your dorm and never get caught.
The following semester you will be rooming with a complete nut case, and its best you don’t know about that before hand, as it will probably scare you into hiding. Moving on…

You will spend a month of the summer in France. Here you will go on a two hour bike ride in Southern France, jump off a 50-foot cliff in to really cold water, walk on average about 6 hours a day, and pretty much have the time of your life. Don’t take it for granted. Remember every little detail.

You will live with some cool people the following semester, and your roommate will more than make up for the last. You enroll in a theater class (because apparently you are suicidal) where you take on the role of head of costuming department. Through this experience you perfect the art of using expletives on a daily basis. You will have a lot of anger towards your professors, particularly in theater and American Lit. It is okay though, they are idiots. But most importantly you will start a blog. And you will have a bunch of people read it, a few of whom you know.

You do this because your next semester will be spent in England. You will make some really weird friends, but they make the experience so much better. You will take a class called Travel Writing and your teacher will make you want to cause physical harm to small children. You will take a poetry class and spend the majority of every class talking about one of three topics: sex, death, or religion. You will go through three classes reading nothing but poems about dead babies, and your professor will start almost every class with the phrase “LETS TALK ABOUT DEAD BABIES SHALL WE!?!”

You will try a lot of new things here, and you will learn a bunch of things about yourself. None of which you need to know at this particular time; it’s better to figure it all out in the moment. Except for Nerdfighters. That will definitely change your life for the better, and get you through a lot of stuff you can’t even imagine you will be dealing with.

Please don’t wear your nice boots to the boat party. They don’t survive.

While in England you will apply and be accepted to a new university. You will be extremely excited and celebrate with your roommate. You will steal a glass from the pub down the street.

You will go to the hometown of William Shakespeare (no, I am not lying). You will see a bunch of plays. You will do quite a bit of shopping. You will spend a lot of time in Harrods. You will walk a lot. You get into Westminster Abby for free by lighting a candle and saying your daily prayers.

Basically, you will have the time of your life and be really sad on the plane ride home.

You start your new school on Monday, where you will have a thousand new and exciting adventures.

It has been a crazy 20 years being you.

The following post mentions Mozart, a whale, and a blind man. Internet, it can’t get any better than this.

I have this thing sometimes where I buy a movie based solely on the cover of the DVD, or what the description says on the back of the case, or the preview, or who stars in it. Sometimes this is bad…The Last Kiss… but sometimes this is a really good thing. Tonight I watched two of the movies I bought the other day- Mozart and the Whale and Blind Dating.  Mozart I bought solely on the fact that I love the two main actors, Josh Hartnett and Radha Mitchell and Dating was purchased based on the preview. I had low expectations for both movies because when you buy movies like this you have to keep your expectations low, in case the movie really really sucks…The Last Kiss…

Mozart and the Whale is a story that revolves around two people with Asperger’s syndrome (a specific type of Autism) and the ups and downs of their growing relationship. Hartnett plays Donald Morton, a failed taxi driver who started and leads a support group for people with various forms of Autism. Mitchell plays Isabelle Sorenson, a person who shows up for the group, offends everyone, and  spends pretty much the rest of the moving doing this exact thing. So they fall in love and have a very unusual relationship.

This movie was utterly amazing. I think one of the things I loved most was the fact that it didn’t try and focus on the medical side of things. The story revolves around a relationship between Donald and Isabelle- two people who “get” each other. Being that they have the same disease, they understand how hard it is to express emotions, to say what you really think and feel, to let people get close to you. Another aspect I enjoyed was the back story of the characters, or should I say lack of back stories. During a specific group meeting you hear Donald’s two minute life story and Isabelle’s two minute life story, and that is really all that is mentioned. You are not stuck in the past; you embrace the characters as they are, as if you have known them your entire life. They stumble upon issues that freak them out, but don’t explain why. They show how they deal with the freak outs, what helps them calm down and yet again, they don’t explain why. It is just the way things are. I think I like this because it made the movie seem so much more intimate and real. You weren’t trying to get to know the characters or dissect them; you were their friend.

That all probably sounded extremely cheesy, but that is how this movie made me feel. The rest of the cast is brilliant as well. Not everyone is struggling with the same kinds of Autism, but as a group they really bond and help each other through the various circumstances in their lives. Hopefully you will go and watch it, which you totally should, and see something different than what I did. I think that is the beauty of movies like this. The message is specific enough that I can relate to certain quirks and traits, but broad enough that it speaks to everyone in a unique way.

Blind Dating is a movie about a guy Danny (played by Chirs Pine) who has always been unlucky in love because he is…blind. Like I said, I chose this based on the preview. And in the preview Danny falls in love with a beautiful Indian woman, Leeza (played by Anjali Jay), and that basically sums up the movie. He is blind, troubled in love, meets a girl, and naturally you assume they fall in love. And like I also said, I set my expectations really, really low.

But this movie completely shocked me. Yes it was the generic, comedic love story I thought it would be, but it had a considerable amount of depth that was no where in the preview. Danny wouldn’t have even met Leeza if he wasn’t trying out for this experimental procedure that would help restore his eyesight. And something else they didn’t mention in the preview was Leeza’s other man (played by Heroes’ Mohinder! Huzzah!). I really ended up liking this move a lot more than I expected to. I liked the fact that with this experimental procedure it wouldn’t restore his eyesight fully; it would only make things a grainy black and white. (I have no idea why I liked that so much. I mean, it wasn’t as if he didn’t deserve to see colors… I just liked it for some odd reason.) I also liked that Danny wanted to be normal and wasn’t upset or seeking pity for the fact that he is blind. By the end I really liked all of the cast (Dr. Quinn as the therapist- classic) and I found myself not wanting Danny to go through with the eye procedure. And no, I am not going to tell you whether he did or not.

While this movie wasn’t as emotionally touching as Mozart was, I would still watch it again. It is a feel good movie where you instantly root for the good guy, even though there isn’t, technically, a bad guy. Maybe… blindness is the bad guy? Like not just typical eye sight related blindness but emotional…blindness?? Haha, maybe not.

All in all you should watch these movies some time. If you had to choose only one I would most likely suggest Mozart and the Whale, but if you are ever in the mood for a movie that doesn’t make you think and ponder the meaning of life, I’d go with Blind Dating.

Surprise! A List!

Random things from the not-so-distant past, the very-present-present, and the rapidly-approaching-future:

1. I met with my roommate- very nice.

2. I saw my dorm room- larger than I thought, so woot!

3. I went into the 3 story library. I tried really, really hard not to drool all over the pretty books.

4. I added more books to my library. I currently own 323.

5. I am a little more than half-way finished with the latest book club book. It is so good!

6. I cleaned my room today. Gosh I love cleaning.

7. I watched John Green on blogtv, during which he took questions from viewers and I totally GOT MY QUESTION ANSWERED DURING THE LIVE BLOGTV SHOW (!!!!!!!!!!!!) at which point I ran downstairs to let my mother and sister know. There may have been dancing and screaming involved; I can’t be too sure.

8. I got together a bunch of stuff to take to my dorm.

9. I watched the new episode of How I Met Your Mother. Not one of my all time favorites, but still incredibly awesome.

10. I watched the new episode of John and Kate Plus Eight. Ahh, that show is amazing.

11. I am getting my hairs cut tomorrow. SHORT. (!!)

12. Have you ever noticed how people say “I am going to get my hair cut?” I mean, are they just getting one hair cut? I would think not. So why don’t we say “I am going to get my hairs cut?” Sure it sounds grammatically incorrect, but it really does make more sense. (Note: this doesn’t really have anything to do with the not-so-distant past, the very-present-present, or the rapidly-approaching-future, but I needed one more point to make my list even.)

Also, in How I Met Your Mother they talked about Robin’s signiture “sign-off” (she was an anchorwoman on the local news) and I want a signiture sign off for my blog! Lets get creative Internet! Give me ideas!! There may be a prize involved for the winner! Huzzah! Everyone loves prizes!!