The Best Thanksgiving Story Ever

"Boston grandmother delivered grandchild while cooking Thanksgiving turkey"

Read about it (it's a really short article, I promise):
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2009/11/29/2009-11-29_boston_grandmother_delivered_grandchild_while_cooking_thanksgiving_turkey.html

Isn't he alot older...?

Today I went to see Old Dogs. I actually really enjoyed this movie. It's pretty funny and cute. I wish it had been a bit longer though. According to imdb.com it was only 88 minutes. I think adding a bit of time and making it closer to 2 hours would have been good because the relationships between Dan (Robin Williams) and his kids and his ex-wife could have been developed more, which I think I would have liked, but I enjoyed the movie as a whole. It was interesting to me that Robin Williams' and John Travolta's characters were supposed to be close in age and everything because Robin Williams looks a good deal older to me. As it turns out, he's not that much older than Travolta (Robin Williams was born in 1951, and John Travolta was born in 1954). You learn something new every day.

I think this was the first time that I watched a movie literally all by myself. I went by myself, and there was no one else in the theater. It's kinda lonely...

"Merry Christmas Y'all"

For Thanksgiving break, I went to visit family in Texas. It was really fun. I hadn't been to Texas in maybe...6 years? One of the things we did was:


the Turkey Trot! In Dallas, the Turkey Trot is a 5K walk or run (with an 8K option, but we did the 5K. We aren't that hardcore). I walked. Fortunately, my ankle was ok (last time I did the Turkey Trot (also in Dallas) my ankle swelled up and I had to sit with ice on it afterwards. which was fine because I didn't have to cook. But I didn't have to cook this time either and I had full ankle use. Excellent!)

Rock Out!

I also played Guitar Hero for the first time. It was really fun! I really should have been better at it seeing as how I (sorta) play the guitar, but apparently I got the hang of it faster than my cousins did originally because they were both surprised. But anyways, if I were home more with my Wii, I would definitely like to have that game. I think my guitar playing would improve (as one of my cousins had told me before. But now that I've played the game, I see!).

Scene it Adventures

"Name the movie" "Bambi" "WHAT?!?!?!" Have you ever played Scene It and someone else gets like the easiest question in the world? Yes, that is how our game began. Name that movie. Bambi. Seriously.

Only in Texas

*Only in Texas (and maybe Wyoming...) do you find cowboy boot stockings at Home Depot.

*Only in Texas is there a Christmas lawn decoration that's in the shape of Texas and says "Merry Christmas y'all" in the center.

*Only in Texas do people have such cute accents! (instead of my boring California non-accent)

Faints on a plane

On Wednesday, I had the most eventful plane ride ever. I walked back to go to the bathroom and completely passed out. I really don't remember it. I vaguely remember the flight attendant asking if there was a doctor on the plane. I vaguely remember like half of the plane looking back towards where I was. It's a very weird idea. I'd never passed out before. On the upside, they gave my a free bag of Planters Daybreak Blend Apple Cinnamon Trail Mix. It's really good, in case you were wondering. Then I was wheelchair-ed down to the baggage claim, then out to our car. Hope not to repeat this incident, but it was definitely eventful.

Italia...

In my Italian class, we watched this YouTube clip.

It's about people in Europe vs. Italians. It's pretty funny (and super-easy to follow along with even if you don't know Italian because only the titles are in Italian and the animation is pretty clear). Oh, I am most definitely going to miss my Italian class. I'm taking it in the spring, but with a different teacher and with mostly different classmates...

A Note on Ice

I'm writing my paper for French class on the Guerre du Roquefort (to make a long story short, this conflict comes from the EU prohibiting the importation of beef grown with hormones. The US then added taxes on some European imports. This January, the US put a 300% tax on roquefort cheese to "punish" France for leading the Europeans to ban the beef. Voilà!). In my research, I found a very interesting quote...

"Un Américain peut interpréter la quasi-absence de glace dans son verre comme une preuve de retard technologique. J’ai entendu cette interprétation à plusieurs occasions. Un Français, par contre, verra dans cette ‘manie’ de mettre de la glace partout soit une preuve de ‘puritanisme’ (gâcher le goût de la boisson) soit une obsession de la technologie dans tous les domaines, soit une façon mesquine d’économiser sur la quantité servie » -Piere Guerlain

Translation:

"An American may interpret the quasi-absence of ice in his/her glass as proof of a technological delay. I have heard this interpretation several times. A French person, on the other hand, sees in this 'madness' of putting ice in everything either as proof of 'puritanism' (ruining the taste of the drink) or as an obsession with technology in everything, or a petty way of serving less"

Interesting, isn't it? It's funny how one small thing (to add or not to add ice...that is the question!) shows so much. Each country's ideology is expressed in it.

Does it ever bother you...?

Does it ever bother you that people will be so vocally against and hate things that they don't necessarily have any personal first-hand knowledge about? People who hate a TV show they've never seen or a book they've never read or a movie they've never seen. Simply because a lot of people like it? It drives me crazy. It's one of my strongest pet-peeves. If you're going to dislike something, there should be a reason, and a better one than that "it's everywhere" or "because it's so popular." Franchement.

Do you ever find it interesting that the people who are so against something mention whatever it is they don't like more often than those who do like the TV show/movie/book? I've noticed on Facebook that people who are "haters" (to use a NorCal word) talk about whatever it is (example: Twilight) constantly? Curious, isn't it?

Sorry if you'd define that as venting, it just drives me crazy...

I'm such a movie goer...

Yesterday I saw Planet 51. It was an entertaining movie. The human (who, in this movie, is the alien) is a pretty funny character. He's essentially the stereotypical American, so it's an American movie making fun of Americans...Only not, I guess. According to IMDB.com, this movie's country is "Spain: UK : USA." Which makes a lot of sense based on the names of most of the people in the credits...I liked it, but I must admit that Disney movies are much better. No offense to the creators.

On a related note....

I'm calling this my "California" wall. Why? Not so sure. I guess because it reminds my of California. Beach scenes (although at least one is from Hawaii), the Princess & the Frog poster, and picture from Disneyland (from Disneyland Paris, actually).

My Sci-fi wall. =D The New Moon poster is completely not straight, and it's across the wall from my desk, so I face it, but fixing it will prove tricky as I used those mounting strips so I'd likely have to put new ones on. I'm unsure if it bothers me that much.

I just got the Disney 23 magazine (a magazine essentially about all things Disney -characters, upcoming & current movies, the parks, etc) I haven't read it yet, but I'm about to...

Adventures in the Passé Simple

My French teacher was very astonished that we cannot write in the passé simple. She would like for us to write our final paper in that tense (or the historical present, which is the tense I'm using). So yesterday, she decided to "teach" us the passé simple. By "teach" I mean gave us a worksheet which, at the top, had the endings for regular verbs, and then below had "conjugate the verb" exercises. ALL the verbs in the exercises were irregular. Yeah....that helps. So anyways, we went through each one as a class. So she would ask what the answer was for a verb, and people would just begin shouting out anything that it could possibly be, anything that had maybe a similar root and endings that sound like the ones of the regular verbs. It was quite an adventure. but it was HILARIOUS. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time because non of us were really sure what the response was and were shouting out all manner of answers, and our teacher was a mix of amused and surprised. She is sometimes surprised at our American-ness. Which is always interesting (she's my first French teacher here at Midd who's French, so it's a different dynamic and very interesting).

New Moon...and teeny-bopper 40 year olds

Today I went to see Twilight New Moon. I really liked it! I liked it better than the first mind (Nota Bene: I have not read the books, just in case you were wondering. I may read them, but I don't know. I love to read love stories, but more short & sweet, to the point ones. I'm unsure how I feel about a super long romance book series. I tend to get very frustrated when the two main characters take too long to finally get together...but anyways. that is not the point of this blog entry). If you liked the first movie, you should really go see it.

Anyways, the funny part deals with the title. In the row in front of where my sister & I were sitting there was a large-ish group of middle aged women. They were hilarious. They would go "wwwwoooooooooo" every time that Jacob took off his shirt or came onto the screen shirtless (and Edward too, I think. But he's in the movie less and there's really only one seen where he's shirtless). It was hilarious...and a little weird. Is it just me, or is it a bit cougar-ish (mind the term if it's not PC. I'm really not sure. But as there's a show called Cougar Town...) for 40 year old women to be "woo"-ing over teenage guys? Hmmm. Not even the teenage girls were like that. They were, therefore, "teeny-bopper 40 year olds." They are teens at heart...I guess. But they definitely added another fun element to the movie.

Yea that the next movie come out in June....until then, countdown to the Princess & the Frog (3 weeks)

A Day at the Movies...

Today I went to the movies and saw a Christmas Carol. It was an interesting movie. Yes, that it was. I was surprised, though, because it was quite a bit on the scary side. I mean, I'm 21 years old and was a little creeped out at times (granted, certain parts of the Haunted Mansion are creepy/scary to me...so I might be a bit of a wimp, but still!). One kid couldn't take it pretty early in the movie and he & his mom left. It was creepy. Be prepared. This movie + small children (may)= a problem. For example, when the ghost of Scrooge's old partner visits him, at one point his jaw essentially becomes detached from the rest f his skull and is hanging there weirdly and to speak he uses his hand to move his jaw up & down. I found that super creepy and it was about that time that the little boy & his mom left (this is pretty early in the movie. Before the three ghosts come). One other note: Disney should reeeeeeeally consider making all of their digital animation movies with Pixar. The quality of the images is much better in Pixar films. No offense at all to the digital animators, but the people and their movements looked very odd to me. At times they reminded me of a Barbie I had when I was younger, Lemona. Lemona was one of the gymnastic Barbies, so her arms were movable (you could move her arms at the elbow, and her shoulder joint was more flexible than that of the regular Barbies), so she could "hold" things, but she couldn't hold them in a super realistic, human type way. Holding her arms in a "circle" looked much more like a hexagon (her hands being the top, her elbows being two of the points, and each shoulder being a point). Sometimes the characters in the movie looked like that. But I did like the movie. I kind of want to read the book. But I've never read anything by Dickens (I'm a language major, but not an English major =D ), and am somewhat intimidated...but maybe I will. Depends on how long the book is.

The movie has me SO ready for Christmas. I'm looking forward to the holidays. Last fall I was in Spain, so I didn't get the whole Thanksgiving season (I did get Thanksgiving dinner, though, because my cousin's cousin lives there and she made dinner for me) as they don't celebrate it there (obviously. It's a holiday celebrating the kindness/sharing of the Native Americans and the pilgrims and all). And the Christmas season was not as enthusiastic or as much as part of popular culture there as it is here. I never heard any Christmas music or anything. I'm definitely looking forward to that this year.

Peppermint Hot Chocolate anyone?

(No seriously. Go to Williams & Sonoma and buy some of their Peppermint Hot Chocolate. it's delizioso!)

Alla Casa Italiana

Yesterday I went to a dinner at the Italian House at my school (What's an Italian house, you ask? Well, at my school there is a house for almost every language taught. People who take the language can live in the house, and there is always a TA who is from the country the language is spoken (ex. in the Italian house there's a guy from Italy). They generally only speak that language in the house. Each house has a "coffee hour" type thing (or at least I think so. At the French, Spanish and Italian houses they do at least). They occasionally sponsor special things like the Picnic at the French House and movies). They (the people who live at the house) served hand-made pasta and it was REALLY good! They made gnocchi with cheese sauce, gnocchi with meat sauce, pumpkin tortellini-like things in sage & butter sauce. They also had delicious appetizers: sliced pears w/ honey & walnuts, slices of parmesan cheese, bruschetta, and prosciutto & cantaloupe). It's a small house - not enough space for everyone to have personal space (at least, in my opinion).

GRE words and encouragement

Part 1: Here are some GRE words that for whatever reason I'm having a very hard time remembering:

*turgid: swollen as from a fluid, bloated

*trenchant: acute, sharp; forceful, effective

*perspicacious: shrewd; astute

*obsequious: overly submissive & eager to please

*blithe: joyful; cheerful; without appropriate thought

*laconic: using few words

*precipitate: lacking deliberation

*specious: deceptively attractive

Part 2: Encouragement

"O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD."

~Psalm 139: 1-4

My New Blog!!!

I've decided to start another blog now that I'm back in the US and no longer on my year abroad. This blog will be about anything and everything going on in my life and mind. As it's my senior year, this blog may double as a place to reflect on things related to the job process, the GRE/GMAT, etc...

Facts About Me:

* I am a polyglot, or would like to be. (this is me putting my GRE vocab to work. Polyglot = multilingual). I speak English (obviously), Spanish, French, and Italian (well...I'm in Intro Italian, but I can put sentences together...so it counts!). I would also LOVE to learn German. It's next on the list.

(if only it were that easy)

*I love to travel. Here are my long-term travel goals: 1) Go to every continent (including Australia. Currently, I've been to North & South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. I'm working on getting to Australia next....one day soon) 2) Go to every Disneyland park (I've got a ways to go on that one. I've only been to Disneyland CA, Walt Disney World FL, and Euro Disney. I'm going to Disneyland Hong Kong over Christmas break though...super exciting)

*I'm working on my high-tech ness. I just got a Twitter account. I'm not really sure what to do with it though....Facebook is better, in my opinion, but I have just started, so we'll see how it goes

*I have recently discovered an interest in advertising/marketing when I was abroad (such as the one for Berlitz). Here's one I saw in Boston that I really like:

*I love photography (both seeing professional photography and taking pictures myself). Here are two photos that I took. The first one is from Brugges, Belgium. The second is from Lyon, France.

More To Come!!!