Movies Movies

In a typical anticlimactic style, I left my very last class of Spring 2006 early because I was hungry. Oh, well. Surprisingly, I received a 20/20 on my Spanish oral exam, with a comment like "Great self-correction!" I really like to be known for that. Barring the final, today's class will have been the last time that I saw Spanish Partner. Bittersweet memory? No, just sweet. He's graduating, and I think I have endured enough maddening giggles to last me a lifetime. I have to remember to write a five page essay on Le Bonheur for Monday.

Pat, Tal, and I watched a double feature of Last Holiday and Hoodwinked. I had a great evening, because not only was Last Holiday funnier than I was expecting, Hoodwinked was even better than I had remembered. Watching a movie is a lot more enjoyable when you have a lot of people around you laughing as well, although it does make it hard to hear some dialogue. Ha;

RED: What big ears you have!
WOLF: All the better to hear your petty insults with.

Now I want to watch it again and catch everything I didn't get the first two times.

Shortness

Wow, I know it's been quite a while. Sorry. If it's any consolation, I've been watching a ton of movies. These include:

The 40-Year-Old Virgin
Ocean's 12
21 Grams
Blue
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Goodbye, Lenin


Yes, I've been a busy girl. Sadly, nothing else to note. Drama, drama, everywhere, and not a drop to drink. I'm anticipating going home for a month and a half and sleeping off this semester.

Oh, I gave the mice peanut butter this morning in a fit of guilt. I came home hoping they hadn't had some weird rodent allergy attack, but they were sitting on top of the house awaiting more. It's like mouse heroin, I think.

We got a new manager at work since Nathan flew the coop. I like this new girl, but she has hinted that if her upcoming interview goes well, she'll be abandoning us as well. I can't get attached to anyone, can I?

That's all for now.

A Kind Note

Dear Spanish Partner,

I know that you are unaware of this, but I give you permission to laugh without checking with me first. I appreciate that you like to control the duration and strength of your effeminate giggles, but I'm starting to not like it. It's creepy and weird. Perhaps you don't believe that I possess peripheral vision, but it's there. Yes, even when I'm not looking directly at you, I can see you out of the corner of my eye. That's when you stare longer. Shudder.

Thanks.

Theraphy

I think I got slipped something this morning since I have been unusually gleeful today. Besides the fab weather, there wasn't anything that really stuck out in particular - I was just in this bizarrely good mood. Oh well - I won't complain. I even went on a mini cleaning spree when I got home. It kind of brings me down to think about how I am going to lug all of this stuff home, but that can be dealt with at a later date. My room at the moment resembles a survival bunker, there's just so much dry food lurking in the far corner.

I have been using my wonderful Healing Garden lotion lately, and I constantly marveled at how I was able to purchase it so cheaply, since usually those are pricy. Upon a close look the other day, I saw that the front of the tube reads "lavendertheraphy". Hey, a typo won't decrease any of the quality. I still haven't opened my Lindt dark chocolate box of wafers with "visual imperfections".

On the N route today a woman got on at the Giant stop with six kids. Six! It was like a parade. And none of them could have been older than eight. I can't describe them any other way than just . . . slovenly. All of the grocery bags she had contained either snack foods or ramen noodles. A baby was pigging out on Cheetos (with a telltale rash of orange stain around his mouth and hands). The girls wouldn't sit down. Another kid kept hitting the baby. Good lord. She was a walking advertisement for birth control.

Motorbike

As promised, and much awaited...





This is one happening bike.








This is my happening dad.

Happy Something Birthday

Yesterday was a combination birthday party for my father and my uncle. Dad brought home his Smooth-Tailed Deuce and was in love with that for most of the day. It's pretty sweet. I managed to separate the two of them long enough to get a picture of the motorcycle alone. I'll post that later.

All of my family was sitting on the porch and my great-uncle was telling some story about his Boston Terrier having puppies when he was little. He finishes up this tale by saying "and then I put them all in a sack and drowned them. I had to, you know. My foster mother made me. We couldn't afford to feed them."

And then there was silence. Depressed, introspective, unfestive silence. My mother finally broke the ice by exclaiming "Sheesh, partykiller!" Hit the nail on the head with that one.

The family and I watched Jurassic Park III last night at my request. Oh, that film is full of good memories. With our first DVD player we had the option to choose one of several "free" DVDs to go with it, a.k.a some really crappy movies that no one wanted to buy. The most promising movie in that gold mine was JPIII, and we must have watched it five or six times before breaking down and buying a new DVD. It's really not that bad. If for nothing else, I liked it since it had my favorite Hollywood hottie, William H. Macy. Something about him as Paul Kirby eerily reminded me of Ned Flanders. After he said "I'd bet my bottom dollar!" I was sure of it.

Today the festivities continue and we are going up to my grandmother's house for an Easter lunch/dinner since I have to be home before 6:00 to catch a ride home. We're eating pretty much the same thing as yesterday so I might have to gorge a little on candy before we leave. That should make for a pleasant car ride.

Signs

Hee. Someone cleverly added a hula hoop sticker onto the crosswalk sign. Nice.

$5,000,000

Not much to say, and I am in a slight hurry to bed since I had a bustled day. Good news on the legal front - we won our case, with the jury finding the New Columbia County School District 100% liable for paying the $5,000,000. Excellent news. I got an A on the assignment too, which was important figuring that this one mock trial alone counted for 50% of our grade.

In other reassuring news, my petition to substitute my Japanese Film class from last semester into my first year seminar was accepted. This is wonderful. I was afraid of wasting my precious time as a senior bogged down with nervous, twitchy freshmen.

All right, I'll picture you up.

Deuce Bigalow: Elimated Gigolo

The cross-examination wasn't too bad today. I had to be kind of a hard-ass since the defense decided that anything they didn't want one of the witnesses to say was automatically able to be objected to. I just kept repeating the question and got the judge all up in a tizzy but I hope that the jury was able to see the point that I was trying to raise.

Oh well. If not, there's not many days left. There's still closing, which I am positively dreading. I hate public speaking with a passion. I don't even know why. It's not really that logical of a fear. I know all the people in my class - everyone on the jury is decent and no one else really listens. Perhaps it's an innate fear of sounding really, really dumb. But I answer questions all the time in class, risking dumbness. Maybe it's the prolonged exposure to the ridicule of the class. Who knows. At least I have a transparency to fall back on.

In Spanish we are learning the "if" clauses, and we have to repeatedly start questions with various forms of "if I did this, then x would happen." Like, if I were to eat a dozen eggs, then I would be sick. One of the questions today was "If you were able to choose a popular person, who would you eliminate?"

Wow! Great question! I wasn't sure if the question referred to notoriety or popularity, but I said "Si yo puedo eliminar una persona del moda, elimanaria Rob Schneider".

Sincerely. If I had the power, I would elimate him. God, what benefit has he ever bestowed on mankind? So far, he's given us the gems of The Animal, The Hot Chick, the upcoming Benchwarmers, and let's not forget the pinnacles of highbrow humor, Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo and European Gigolo. He has made me laugh less often.

By the way, The Benchwarmers is coming to our theatre today. I feel morally obligated to refuse to sell tickets to that film.

007 Style

Just a couple of minutes ago I got out of Spanish and smoothly tried to impersonate a James Bond move, which unfortunately failed. I stepped on my ankle wrong and almost cascaded down an entire flight of steps. Luckily my superior grace and balance saved me, but I wasn't in the mood to try any more deft actions.

I noticed today that Spanish Partner has this irritating habit of looking at me right before he laughs at anything, supposedly to gauge how amusing the situation really is. My patience with him is wearing incredibly thin. At first it was embarrassingly funny, but now I just want to hit him a lot. Whenever we do partner exercises he always treats me like I'm his little pupil or something. After answering one of the dumb questions he looks at me with a big smile and says "Ahh! Si! Muy bueno!" with a patronizingly goofy tone, like he cannot believe that I have the mental capacity to answer things correctly.

Arrggh, my blood pressure goes up and up just thinking about him, so that can't be healthy.

I have a meeting with my academic adviser today - the one that always acts like I am taking this significant portion of time out of her busy life. I don't know what I did to agonize her so, but it was obviously a big deal.

Dove-Tailed Smoothie

Well, this came as a surprise. My father's birthday is April 1st (just kidding! not!) and this year my mother finally allowed him to get what he's been wanting for two decades . . . a Harley Davidson.

Oh good lord. My dad is much cooler than I am. They just ordered it and hopefully I'll be able to see it when I come home. The name of the model is "Smooth-tailed Deuce" but I like to call it "Dove-Tailed Smoothie".

I saw Inside Man for the third time yesterday, which I wouldn't have thought possible. Actually, it was still entertaining. Emrys and I were able to enjoy the gorgeous weather while he put up with me for stopping and taking so many pictures.


This was next to the elevator. How ghetto. "In case of . . . f . . . do . . . use. . . elevators . . . use . . . " Hah, I wouldn't want to waste time reading that if there was actually a fire. Hopefully I'd look as serene as the guy in the picture.





Here's your run-of-the-mill Danger(!) sign. I kind of liked the rogue wire and the guy dancing.




Oh god! Why did they commission this person to draw on the sign representing The Waffle Shop? Could they find no better artist? I don't know what's worse - the freaky-ass big ears or the eyes to nose placement. Or, also, the fact that his lower body seems to be melllllting away.



Emrys' apartment complex is hard-core, indeed. In the heart of gang territory.

Crafty

I managed a craft today. I bought a journal from Half Price Books that was incredibly ugly (the front and back featured a mountain biker riding down a large cliff) but had the ideal binding. I was inspired yesterday and cut out some Penny Arcade comics and glued three on the front and three on the back. They don't quite meet each other in the spine but it's worth covering up that horrid action shot. I think it looks nice. I need to find the Mod Podge and finish up the job.


Check it out. There's a new Cingular store downtown and they celebrated the sunny day by toting the big guy outside. Oh, he's excited about the good weather too.