Mandy's Art Studio: III

So, this first one's to work on drapery, the hands are when I was procrastinating on doing an assigned sketch, the leaf is actually a tiny part of another drawing that I took out and enlarged. The first sketch that it was in is really boring, though. And, one day I bought a muffin and was bored in class. So it ended up in my sketchbook.

Mandy's Art Studio: II

I've decided that most of the stuff in my sketchbook is really not worth putting up at all, so I'll put up only some. Here are Christmas sketches. And I apologize to Jaime and Ben I, who look nothing like themselves.

No, you won't find any substance here

Okay, I just went through a lot of trouble to organize my Google homepage. To keep me from having to organize it again, Brad and Jaime, you must continue to have approximately one out of yuor last three titles be double-lined, while everyone else is restricted to not using more than one Google homepage title lines in your blog entries. That will help keep everything nicely proportioned. Thanks for your help.

:)

This campus is funny. No buildings or rooms are labelled. I think it's actually because everyone wants to laugh at the freshman the first two weeks of school. But seriously, that's what it takes. First two weeks, and the freshman stumble awkwardly into other classrooms, wander around lost on campus, and can be heard saying things like, "the Black Doors? Where's The Black Doors? Have you heard of the Black Doors?" "No, but I saw a pair of black doors in the basement of Moe's. Maybe that's the Black Doors." ...until they've learned where things are trial by fire style. Bathrooms aren't labelled, either. For so long (a month) last year, I wondered, "Where are the bathrooms?!" Then one day I sat in the hallway of Nicholson (where all my classes are) for an hour. I noticed that only men went in and came out of this one room. So I went to its symmetrical opposite, and there it was! A door that only women went in and came out of. Thaaank goodness. The classrooms of Nicholson have laminated room numbers taped to the wall to label them. And if you're from outside the campus and are trying to find a building, don't even bother trying. Just ask someone before you waste your time. Hmm...the library has a name on it. I don't know what it is, though...because people just call it the "library," shocking.

For the first time ever, I read some of The Onion. I've heard so much about this site. My opinion: Funny, but sarcasm can only take you so far. I got tired of it in about ten minutes, 'cause by the time you've read the title, you know what the article's going to say.

Due to watching obscene amounts of decorating and real estate shows, I've become totally fixated on decorating next year's bedroom, and so I've been spending ridiculous amounts of time looking at fabric online. Man there are a lot of beautiful fabrics. Expensive ones.

South Park Anne Marie!

lol, I know you don't look crazy like this, Anne, but it was my best attempt.

South Park Brad!

Mandy's Art Studio: I

Okay, here we go. First! Some observations. After taking pictures of these sketches, it's interesting comparing what the real thing looks like to what the picture on my computer looks like. Some of them look...a lot better on screen, and others look a lot better in my sketchbook. Mostly, I notice how much the flaws stand out in the picture of it on my computer. With a two-second glance, I see that one eye is bigger than the other, or one entire side is completely larger. So, keep in mind while you look at these: I am also squinting my eyes, trying to make everything look right, and some of these are split-second efforts, after a night of long paper-writing, just trying to fit this sketching assignment in before bed and class tomorrow. And all of these will be in chronological order, starting with my very first homework assignment. Oh, also, some of these are in sort of bad condition, as other pencil/chalk rubbed off onto it.

So, self-portrait. The idea was just to work on proportion. And the sketches below were to continue proportion work and get a sense of the foreground, middleground, and background. Nothing crazy. :)

Tile!

I watched What Women Want last night, a movie that I don't actually like, and I wonder how many women tried to electrocute their husbands in an attempt to clue them into their womanly thoughts after watching this.

I drew a ridiculously large amount this weekend, which was fun. Oh, yeah, I finally have my digital camera again, so maybe I'll take some photos of some stuff, and post them. That's right, prepare to be extremely unimpressed. Whatever you do, when I do post some, please do not feel compelled to compliment each one. If anything, just say, 'meh,' but I hate compliments when no compliments are deserved. Some people who will be making appearances are: Brad, Ben I, Anne Marie, Jaime, Evie, Julie, Ella, and Alex...and of course, me, 'cause we do self-portraits.

So, this is the tile that's going to be used on the kitchen countertops. It's already purchased, so whine all you want, but it would be even better if you liked it.
Drawings coming soon. Probably,..very soon.

South Park Me

Don't my titles just draw you in? You must be thinking, What is Mandy doing/thinking that would involve South Park, when she's spent the last six months of her life watching (almost) exclusively home improvement/real estate shows? Well, there are web sites that let you create your own South Park character that looks like you. I saw Jenny's (Schumacher, think violin and art and hanging out with me at Cup O Joe, and long strawberry-blond hair) Facebook profile picture, which was a South Park character that looked exactly like her. While the one I created isn't as much of a match, I don't think it's too shabby. What you can't see is that I'm wearing a green button-down shirt and a black scarf.
I totally owned that paper that I procrastinated on. I should totally fail on a procrastination effort so that I learn my lesson and wise up...too bad I kick ass. Some of you should enjoy the study that I used for it: To examine whether the sense of belonging to a group influences whether or not you help someone who you think does or does not belong to the same group, guess what they did? They took Manchester United fans, and like the Good Samaritan study I mentioned earlier, had them witness someone in trouble (a runner falling, twisting his ankle, and crying out in pain). The manipulation: Every participant was a Manchester United fan, but the guy they saw fall was either wearing a Manchester United shirt, a plain sports shirt, orrrrr a Liverpool FC shirt, their great rivals! So, when does the Manchester United fan help? Well, more often when they thought the confederate was a Manchester United fan, but the good news is that they helped the supposedly Liverpool fan as often as they helped the non-affiliated confederate, so at least they weren't being mean. :-p

P-R-O-C-R-A-S...lazy

Today, all the seniors who did a thesis prepared posters and there was a big poster fair, where we could walk around looking at all the studies and results (for all departments, thanks to this small university). And then, while looking at all the fun studies that people did, I had a moment of panic where I felt the need to have a senior thesis and start workign on it now. Instead of doing that, of course, (since that would involve actually having everything planned, written, and an ethics application submitted and approved) I have satisfied myself instead with starting to write down ideas. Here are a million different study ideas rolled into one stream of consciousness:

Dev Psychology says: Same self-image is maintained from puberty/adolescence until forties. With this …reduction in self-consciousness(?)… does the maintenance of appearance deteriorate? Is there a difference in the deterioration of appearance maintenance between males and females? Is it because a larger percentage of women stay home with kids, while males need to “look good” for work? Is there a deterioration of appearance maintenance a little while after getting married, and if so, how long does it take for this to happen?

Feel free to throw any ideas you guys may have at me. I need inspiration!!!!

You know what's funny? After reading so many studies, I've stopped trusting my environment, especially around the Annex (psychology building). Today, I saw a glove on a step, and thought, "Is someone testing helping behavior? Maybe there's something peeking outside a window above, watching me either pass this glove by, or take it in to an office to be put in the lost and found." Despite my fear, and thanks largely to the icy, stinging wind making me practically sprint past in search of warmth, I didn't pick the glove up.

I've left a paper until tonight, and it's worth 20% of my mark for this whole year. :( I had such wonderful intentions that invloved not procrastinating! What happened to them? So...wish me luck. I hope that brilliant words and ideas flow at lightning speed into Word. Please.

Coffeetime!

Pet Peeve: You're about to walk up a narrow stairway (wide enough for two people), but lo and behold, two people are walking down, talking together, side by side. They see you, you see them. Does one move to the same side as the other at any point? NO! You have to stand at the bottom, waiting for them to walk alllll the way down the stairs, very slowly (and these aren't old people, here), to give you a chance to walk up. ARAAAARGH! Very similar pet peeve is when this same thing happens on the sidewalk. I don't care who I'm walking next to; when I see another person coming, I'll fall back to give walking room on the sidewalk to the person approaching me. Why do SO many other people not do this? I get pushed off into the mud because of this more times than I care to count. (As in, end up walking in the mud, not falling on my butt in the mud. That would get me a lot more than just peeved.)

Pet Peeve: There are two rolls of toilet paper, one smaller than the other. Why do people use the larger one? It's twenty times more efficient for both the janitor and you if you only use teh smaller one until it's gone. Otherwise, you're at this weird halfway point with both rolls, and they don't get replaced until they're both entirely gone, or they replace them a little early, and you have those small, almost finished ones sitting around, but no one uses them, they just use the new big ones, and the little ones multiply. This is a very small pet peeve of mine.

Whew, that was enough venting.

Now, I get to talk about data collecting today! Haha, it was the most horrible mess of a thing. First off, my group had to print all of our questionnaires (14 pg. ea), invitations to participate, consent forms, and debriefing letters ourselves, at about 9 cents a double-sided page. The school apparently doesn't provide for this sort of thing... Anyways! There were about sixty people in the class we were going to give our questionnaire, so we printed a little over sixty copies of everything, just in case. It was supposed to be our turn to collect data in this class at 9:40, but we all decided to arrive at 9:30, just in case. Even more just in case, I arrived at 9:15, to find that the floor was already ours. Each member had versions of the questionnaires, and the invitations to participate. We're supposed to pass out the invitation to participate, then the consent form, then the questionnaire, then the debriefing letter, and keep it all very scripted. Gregg and I, the only people there yet, only had the consent form and one version of the questionnaire. So we were totally unscripted (oh no, ethics!! :-P), passed out the consent form and thenthe invitation to participate after our other group members arrived (oh no, ETHICS!!!! :-P) and then the questionnaire. Some people slipped out without debriefing letters, so they'll never really know what the study was about, oh well. OH, the real kicker here is that, of course, there were only 38 people in class. So we all wasted soooo much money printing everything off, augh.

The point of all of this is that in my little undergraduate psychology student's life, today was very important for me. Under ethical clearance (whoops) I conducted a study and collected data for the first time. Yay!!! I need a bottle of champagne to open or something, but instead I'll go grab a coffee

Je Me Google

While watching mindless television (Makeover Wish) this show is based around the "ultimate sacrifice" that a man made for his wife. No, he didn't rush into a burning building and die saving her, he donated his kidney. Being the cynical, mean person that I am, I can't believe that this is considered a huge sacrifice. His wife is at death's door, and he's considered an angel for donating his kidney and saving her? What kind of a husband, knowing that he could save his wife's life, decides not to? I don't think that this is, I could be an average guy, or I could be an angel and save her. I think that this is, I could be a horrible person and let her die, or I could do what I know I should do. So, that's my mean cynical thought of the day.

Speaking of donating, what's everyone's blood type? I'm A+, and so is Anne Marie. Is everyone else as A-oriented as we are?

I am so pathetic. About once a year, I google myself and discover how little of an impact I've had on teh world. Yes, I use google to assess this. Previously, I only showed up in Boris's blog. Now, I also show up in my own and others' blogs. Actually...scratch that. Still only Boris's. :( Oh, woe!! Is anyone else sad enough to google themselves? I suspect there are others who share my self-googling tendencies.

I love you!

Well, I saw Music and Lyrics, and I thought it was great. A rottentomatoes review mentioned that it's charming fluff, and that's exactly what it is. I would just call it charming, though, because of course it's fluff. But Hugh Grant made an excellent has-been eighties pop star. It seemed like he and Drew Barrymore were having a lot of fun together making it, and I think that makes any movie more enjoyable.

The other night, I was thinking about how there's a huge difference between loving people and both recognizing and appreciating that you love people. I don't know if appreciation comes as you lose people and realize what you've lost, or just as you grow up, but there's definitely a difference in how I appreciate people now versus...like...two years ago. So, I want everyone to know that not only do I love you, I also get those mushy appreciative feelings, and worry about you.

Not My Week

This week has not been my best week. First off, I practiced cello for the first time in a long while (far too long) and got a surprisingly painful blister on my pinky. It leaks all over my keyboard and hurts when I grab anything.

Then my right ear piercing got infected because of a cheap pair of earrings I wore, and it's been generally horrible, and bleeding all over my pillowcase (yuck!). It's just been getting worse over the last four days, but I think it's starting to get better.

Then while I reached in to get a chicken from the oven, my hand bumped the top, and I got a mildly bad burn across the knuckles of my right hand. Just some raised blisters.

Then last night, while I was carrying my pasta over to the colander, the boiling water spilled over and onto my left foot. I was wearing a sock, which actually helped to shield me a bit from the initial heat, I think, but did suck because then I had a burning hot sock still on my foot. I freaked out (quietly) a little bit at first, 'cause I remember that scar that Jennie has from boiling water, right? And I pictured the skin on my left foot bubbling and sloughing off. Perhaps thanks to my sock, though, it's just speckly red with some white areas in the center.

Oh, not to mention the five blisters I also have on my feet right now from wearing my adorable flats when it was warm out.

So, although I'm eating well and working out and taking my Vitamin C and Multivitamin (after I eat so that I don't puke) my body is just NOT feeling the love right now.

I'm watching Four Weddings and a Funeral right now, and it's clear that Sam wants to be Hugh Grant and have the beautiful and classy Girl From a Different Country fall for him. Seriously, though, inflection and mannerisms: Sam=Hugh Grant in Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Coming Soon

Well, that time of year is rapidly approaching once more. What is this moment of which there is such great expectation? My birthday! While lying in bed, it hit me how soon it'll be here. And to add to the excitement:

It's my 21st! My last important birthday until 25, when I tell myself, "Goodness, should you be getting married soon?" 3o, when I ask myself if I've grown up yet, and 40, when I start to feel old. Then 80, when I actually will be old.

Anyways, if the thought had occurred to someone to get me a 21 years old type birthday present (a la cocktail shaker, wine stopper, drink recipe book, etc.) you can if you really want to, but I drink so rarely that there's sort of...no...point.

Instead!! I'll provide a couple of unreasonable options.

1) A compact printer/scanner/copier!









2) A cute bike!

3) A bed!

4) A couch!

So, haha, yeah, the long and short of that list, is that you don't need to get me anything. :)

Sam, good question! That's one that I was asking myself. (He brought up those crazy heroic situations where people knowingly go into a situation where they'll die in order to help someone else.) There are different theories that talk about helping behavior. One is evolutionary theory, which everyone (me) is bored of. Then there's social exchange theory, which is very pessimistic, and says that people only help when the costs outweigh the benefits, and thus there is no altruism. But if that's the case, then what about that situation that you mentioned, Sam? Obviously, the costs outweigh the benefits, and depending on the situation, doesn't fit with evolutionary theory.

But do not despair! Batson (a former minister) proposed the empathy-altruism hypothesis. As you can probably guess by its name, the idea's that when you feel empathy for a person, you'll help for purely altruistic reasons. If you don't feel empathy, though, social exchange theory comes into play.

Beeedtime.

Psych Lesson!..long

In case you were depressed about humanity, as Jaime was, by that last post, I'll go a little further into why we decide to help or not to help people. In the end, the decisions seem very natural and human, if not heroic, but you might be depressed a little bit first. And, I'm also going to tell you a story you've heard before.

In 1964, Kitty Genovese was walking from her car to her apartment (30m away) in Queens after she got off from work. This guy stabbed her, she yelled, some people yelled at him to leave her alone, he left, she attempted to crawl to her apartment, the guy came back ten minutes later, stabbed her some more, then raped her, and all in all, this took about an hour while she was screaming for help. She was outside an apartment complex with more than thirty people living in it, and considering that people knew she was being attacked, the public wondered, "Why didn't someone call the police, or try to help her somehow?" Well, someone did call the police a while later as an afterthought. But she was already dead.

People thought, those callous New Yorkers, they just don't care about anything. But some psychologists were like, "Seriously? No way. There must be an explanation." And after doing a lot of studies, of which there are some really funny stories, they concluded that there are a series of yes/no questions that people ask themselves that determine whether or not they help in an emergency.

First, do you notice that something's happening? If no, continue being distracted by whatever, if yes, ask yourself next question:

Second, do you think it's an emergency? Sometimes, people will ignore smoke filling a room if no one else does anything about it, assuming everyone else knows somethign that they don't. If you do think it's an emergency:

Third, do you take responsibility? When there are more people around, people tend to think that someone else will take care of it, and then nothing happens. Remember in First Aid training, when they told you to point directly at someone and say, "You! Call 911!" 'Cause if you just shout, "Somebody call 911!" nothing much is goign to happen.

Fourth, even if you take responsibility, do you know how to help? Someone might really want to help someone who needs it, but they have no idea what to do. I'd most likely stand around flapping my hands, saying, "Call a doctor! Call a doctor!" if I was trying to help someone having a heart attack. But hey, at least I tried in this hypothetical situation. Points for effort.

Fifth, provide the help! What messes some people up in this situation is that they're embarassed, don't have enough time to do what's needed, or get so inhibited from being in front of people that they freeze.

So, if you make it through all of these, you're going to help. If you're like me, you'll stand around flapping your hands. If you're Jaime, you'll nevertheless pound enthusiastically on his chest, shouting, "Live, dammit!"

If you actually read all of this, I'm very impressed. And as a treat, I'll tell you that one of the studies they did to test step two, they put people in a room either alone or with two other people, and while they were filling out a questionnaire, pumped smoke into the room through a vent. Alone, most people whisked out of the room pretty quickly to tell the experimenter there was smoke in the room. With other people there also filling out questionnaires, most people sat there until the experimenter came in after six minutes had passed to stop the study. Silly people.

Well, this has been a nice review of my last social psych class lecture. Pavel/Pasha/Sam looks very cute and has pincheable cheeks. Time for class!

The Good Samaritan

I can't believe you guys weren't completely inspired by my hallway renditions last post. Well, I have something that will inspire everyone:

I finished my paper yesterday! In a seven hour writing extravaganza. I got back from class, brought a bean bag and my laptop into my bedroom, shut the door, and with the exception of three bathroom breaks and a Subway Melt, emerged seven hours later triumphant. So I only wrote 'til 12:30. And I need to add--this wasn't just the writing process. I did all of my research and material gathering and reading in that time as well. I read eight studies.

Ooh, ooh! I have a good one for you guys today. It's called the "Good Samaritan" study. I like the title of it: "From Jerusalem to Jericho": A study of Situational and Dispositional Variables in Helping Behavior. Basically, these guys Darley and Batson were trying to figure out why perfectly good people don't help someone out when they're in trouble. There's a whole big model they created, blah blah blah, but on their way to creating that model, they did all these studies to figure it out, and this is one of them.

Here's the great thing about this study: They recruited actual seminary students as participants. They randomly assigned the seminary students to go give a lecture in another building on either professional opportunies after seminary school, or on the good samaritan story. They further randomly assigned the participants to believe that they were either late to give the talk, or early, but should go on over anyways.

On the path between the two buildings, a confederate was slumped over in the hallway that the participants had to walk through, and as they passed by, he moaned and coughed, to be in obvious need of assistance. Whether they were giving the talk on professional opportunities or the good samaritan story did not affect the percentage that chose to try and help the man. What did affect it was how much of a hurry the person was in. 63% who weren't in a hurry helped him in some way, and 10% helped him who were in a hurry. Helping could even have been ignoring him but lettign someone know that there was a man in the hall who needed help. One of the participants actually had to step over the man to get by, and still didn't help. I find that funny.

Time for class. I'm celebrating my paper's completion with dinner and a movie tonight--yay! I love the weight that lifts after a paper is turned in.

Hallway arteries

The hallways and stairwells of Nicholson Hall are like arteries, and every hour, they clog.

Here is an illustration of an artery, I mean hall, normally. All healthy and happy, and the students/red blood cells, whisk through with ease. And with coffee. But every hour, students accumulate, waiting to get into their classes, while other students pour out of the classrooms. People stop and chat with their friends, and these clusters occur. Big groups and circles of friends form, blocking the entire hallway, completely preventing anyone from getting through. The evil black blood cells are killing the poor, healthy red blood cells, and meanwhile, the BRAIN IS DYING FROM OXYGEN DEPRIVATION!!! AAHHHH!! I really wish they'd widen the halls.

What a nightmare.

Last night, I had a dream that Ben K owned a cute, little bunny, and lived with Aunt KK. Aunt KK had painted the exterior of her house sunshine yellow and olive green. Mater also lived with her, and in my dream, I'd actually sent her the thank you note that I intend to send every year, but never do.

I have a research paper to begin and finish tonight. Will I never stop procrastinating? No, I probably won't. The sad thing is that I can't start it 'til I get home, which will be around five o'clock.

Movie binging

Due to laziness and obscene comfort in my outrageuously green lounge pants, I'm staying in and watching bad television instead of going to see Pan's Labyrinth. Jaime, you'll be happy to know that I've gone to the gym the last three nights in a row. Go me!!

Last night, I saw Stranger Than Fiction. It was great! I heard so little about it once it actually came out, and the impression that I got from talking to people was, "meh." But I spent like half the time laughing with horror and delight. Emma Thompson was wonderfully neurotic, and both she and Will Ferrel were very lovable characters. Oh, and Dustin Hoffman and Queen Latifah made for fun supporting actors.

Some quotes I enjoyed:
Queen Latifah: You know there's something called a patch.
Emma Thompson: I don't need a patch, I smoke cigarettes .

Dustin Hoffman: Aren't you relieved to know you're not a golem?
Will Ferrel: Yes, I'm relieved to know I'm not a golem.

You know what I dislike? People's fake affection and closeness. Maybe this is part of why I find it difficult to make friends or I find being social...awkward, but I just can't stand people who barely know each other saying they love each other, hugging, and kissing each other on the cheek. Especially people who have just been introduced doing that. Blah. And then, everyone just talks about stupid things and smiles, and what they say is completely empty. But, if you want to talk to some people, that's what you have to do.

I have a goal to find two adorable spring/summer dresses casual enough for everyday wear. Feel free to submit ideas. :)

A Night in New Glasgow

Fear not, ye blog readers. Thanks to my lenient class schedule, I'll still be posting between classes.

Amazing discovery of the day: Pan's Labyrinth has actually come to Antigonish. I'm going to go see it Sunday, yay!

Today's adventure: 300! Things some people might not like: 1)It's not a complex movie by any stretch of the imagination. 2)Everything is done to excess--you might just explode at some point as you're bombarded by all the visual stimuli.

Buuut:

This is a recreation of a Frank Miller novel! Subtle nuances were not the idea. Again, this is a recreation of a Frank Miller novel! Over-the-top, graphic eye candy is what it's all about. There were really beautifully-created scenes, and some of the battle scenes were...awesome. The men in this film were half-naked the entire time, most definitely shirtless, and at times completely naked (not at all surprising for Frank Miller). And accordingly, every man was totally ripped. Ripped. So, in one scene, the 300 men are all sprinting towards and under the camera, and it's just...a huge fleet of 300 half-naked ripped men running by...one after the other. How is this not hilarious?! For those who love modesty and moderation, keep in mind that this is a Frank Miller graphic novel. Don't see it if you mind the nudity and blood. Just look at the way the title is written. :-P

Oh, also, this is loosely based on Frank Miller's novel, which is even more loosely based on history. So don't go in there expecting...accuracy.

Bottom line: I loved it! Beautifully crafted fight scenes.

Last night, I went to the gym, and I've discovered the magic of reading a magazine while on a bike/stair stepper thing. The time melts away. You know what scares me, though? Those girls who are on ellipticals, hands-free, zooming: whizz-whizz-whizz-whizz for like forty-five minutes straight, and then they just move on to the next machine. I would hate to be that girl. Seeing a movie like 300, though, inspires me to be totally fit and toned. Hopefully I'll get to be fit, but stay clear of manic exercise girl behavior--I think that everyone knows that this is hardly a real concern. :)

Computer...addiction?

So, I spend a rather notoriously large amount of time on the computer. So does Brad, but he has work as an excuse. For the next...oh, at least seven days, I'll say, I'm going to make an honest effort to reduce the amount of time I spend on the computer. I'll spend no more than two hours a day on the computer at home. Time that I burn in the computer lab between classes doesn't count. :-P

So, wish me luck in my computer semi-abstinence.

Due to a cute commercial, I went to talbots.com, and learned something. Talbots' clothes are overpriced considerign how un...nice, Talbots is.

Dreamings

I'm sitting here waiting for a lab, that may or may not be happenining, to start. Oh, it is happening. Lab guy just walked in. I still really want to tell you guys about the last two nights' messed up dreams.

Okay, two nights ago:

I had been given $5,000 to spend on clothes for a makeover (very much What Not To Wear, I know), and spent the entire first day in a clothing store run by Michael Caine. Just before closing time, I wanted to run over to this shoe store and buy some kickass shoes. No luck, though, 'cause they were just lowering their metal bar things as I arrived. I decided to console myself with a streudel in a pub type place next to Michael Caine's clothing store. There was a ridiculously long line, though, and Caine's store closed while I was waiting. On top of that, there were only two streudel left! (These were huge streudel. Like the size of a 500 page book.) Anyways, the woman who owns the place, in this thick Hungarian accent, says, "Oh, we're running out of streudel, there's only enough left for the Kessler." I was confused that she knew me, but apparently Mom and Dad used to bring us to this pub allll the time when I was little. :-P So, Michael Caine closed his shop, and he and the girl who works there joined me in the pub, where I ordered, what else, a Diet Pepsi.

And last night:

Well, I'll make this concise. But the scale and details of this dream are just insane. Basically, between being Mindy from Mork and Mindy, and finding out I was adopted thus somehow making it necessary for me to paint myself entirely white, and counseling a friend while he wore an oldschool fifties hat and played the piano while smoking a cigarette, I was also the daughter of this king, whose enemies were attackign the city. In the hubub of evacuating to the river (which was somehow smart...) I ended up lost among the footsoldiers, where I made a kickass friend and helped confuse the enemy across the river by doing weird things with candles in baskets under water all night. I really liked my soldier friend.

So! Those were my two most recent dreams. Last night's episode of House was really good. If you didn't see it, then don't read this sentence in parentheses (Cameron's look was priceless when she realized that House stole a patient's file and pretended to have cancer in order to have an experimental dopamine treatment injected into his brain to, ultimately, get high. Priceless. She looked sooooo horrified.)

Has anyone ever had that experience where you're holding a wicked hot drink (coffee, hot chocolate, tea) but you're so cold. In fact, that's why you're drinking this hot drink. You're so cold, in fact, that you have no control whatsoever over your shivering. After trying to hold them in for a time, they burst out in huge twitches...and your drink is now all over you. I hate that. It's happened at least twice. Happened again this morning. I'm going to cancel lunch with a friend, actually, because I can't begin to bear the thought of walking all the way to the A&W in the cold.

If anyone ever wanted to know what one of my dreams was sort of like, I'd watch MirrorMask. Someone might as well have gone into my head and recorded one of my dreams. That's how I felt while I was watching it. More on that movie later.

The Illusionist/The Prestige. I wouldn't consider one better than the other. The Prestige was more complex and its characters were much darker. For just the pleasure of watching, I'd see The Illusionist again, because I enjoy a nice romance, and all the revenge and stuff in The Prestige kind of depressed me. But they were both good.

Time for art! A class where I didn't do the work... :-/

Non Sequitur

For some reason, I really want to get a bed. A permanent bed. With a headboard, maybe a footboard, and some wood somewhere. Of course, that would be pretty ridiculous, since I'm still nomadic, and should only get a proper bed once I've settled down somewhere semi-permanently (longer than eight months). But I'm still experiencing proper bed yearning. As well as proper furniture yearning.

How intense was Heroes last night. Because the world is evil, I can't watch any Heroes episodes online. Not that I need to, I just think it's annoying that I can't. Only people from the United States can access episodes of Heroes on nbc.com. I'm looking at these behind-the-scenes photographs of Heroes, and I don't think I could ever be an actor. What comes across as being well done on TV just looks completely silly in real life. Trying to run down a hall, holding a gun out, looking very serious about things, I think I'd just laugh.

Did anyone else know that Masi Oka (Hiro) graduated from Brown with a major in mathematics and computer science? Awesome.

I remembered how much I love a Chai Latte. Really hits the spot, but is completely outrageously priced at the school's cafe. And regular chai tea just doesn't do it for me the same way.

I like how when talking about The Illusionist and The Prestige last entry, I didn't actually talk about the movie, more just talked about the actors. What a great reviewer I am. :-p

If there weren't already a comic strip named Non Sequitur, that's what I would rename my blog.

The Illusionist/The Prestige

Well, it's been a while. Ooh, imdb's updated its site. I like it. Much cleaner.

Last week, I saw both The Illusionist and The Prestige. I heard a lot of people say that The Prestige was much better than The Illusionist. After seeing both, I don't really think that comparison should be made. The Illusionist is more of a romance/suspense that happens to have magic in it, while The Prestige is more of a thriller/suspense that is all about the magic.

So, The Illusionist. Edward Norton: Yes! Paul Giamatti: Sure, why not. Rufus Sewell: I love you. Jessica Biel: ...what?? When I see Edward Norton in a movie, I generally assume I'm going to at least like it. When I see Jessica Biel in a movie, I generally assume that I'm going to at least never want to see it. She's one of today's ...dare I say sex icons? Well, one of today's females who are considered a standard of attractiveness, and who regularly appear scantily clad on young men's desktop backgrounds. And I never really understood it. Now, Jessica Alba, I may not be a fan of, but I can see that she's pretty attractive. Jessica Biel, was not a fan of, and didn't see what actually made people think she was attractive. Until now! I am Jessica Biel Converted. I thought she was completely beautiful in the movie, and I loved all of her period dresses. No one's ever made that style look so good. I enjoyed the typical romance between Norton and Biel, separated by society's classes. And if the ending was a liiiiittle bit obvious, I was okay with that. Bottom of the line: An enjoyable romance.

The Prestige. Do Hugh Jackman's various accents annoy anyone else? I can't remember the last time I heard him actually be Australian. Anyways. While The Illusionist was fairly light, I thought The Prestige was much darker and ugly in its story. All about what revenge does to people. In the end, I didn't like almost everyone, except for Michael Caine's character. Go Michael Caine! Also, I thought that the way The Prestige was written, with like two flashbacks going on at once, took a little more effort to watch, but was more rewarding as it all built up towards the end.

I never realized that Christian Bale was British. And I also never realized how many things I've seen him in. When I saw him in The Prestige with an English accent, I was like, "Whoa, I'm a little bit impressed." For some bizarre reason, it didn't occur to me that he's the same guy from A Midsummer Night's Dream, Little Women, Swing Kids, and Newsies (three of my childhood favorites!). No wonder I like him so much. And I'm still very surprised about the whole being from Wales thing.

You know what movie I really liked? Equilibrium. Don't go see it, 'cause I think it was just me. (This thought is connected, because Christian Bale is the main character.)

So, spring break's over, and I'm back at school. Katie's boyfriend, Chris, is visiting for the week. Katie and Chris are two of the people I'm going to be living with next year, so it'll be nice getting to know Chris (it's also nice getting to know Katie, but I lived with her all last year and this year, so that isn't really a concern for me:-P).

For now...that's all I've got for news on the homefront.