Feeling :  lazy  Listening :  Latin Active - Lighter Shade of Brown  Reading :  Nothing

Gah, I think it’s that time of the month again. I’ve been really spacy lately. I feel really lazy and unmotivated to do anything though. Usually when it’s “that time,” I’m bouncing off the walls and have this unquenchable need to do things. Like my house and car really need to be vacuumed, but I just don’t wanna do it. Usually I’ll put my iPhone on and listen to music to keep my motivation going, but I really just don’t care. haha. I’m awful.

This could be my well-documented “home from a trip” blues though. Every time I come home from a trip, I always get emo because real life for me sucks that bad, haha.

I took the final for my History of Photography class the other night. Without the final exam, I would’ve ended up with a C-. But I aced the test, only missing 2 questions. I took it online and it got graded it immediately. I actually got enough points from it to jack me up to an A-. YES!! \m/ I thought I read it wrong at first. But I double-checked the grading scale in the syllabus and the amount of points I ended up with. I was right. I love being right.

I also decided against going back to school in the summer. Which is just as well, since there’s only one class that I want to take. My records are still on “financial hold” from lack of paying for spring, but I’ve planned it so that I can pay it off in installments over the summer. And then I will yell at the registrar’s office to unlock my account, haha.

There’s a petition going around school about a crap ton of stuff, like how we don’t have the classes we need, how some of us in the student body are jumping ship to UNLV and how we (the student body and the faculty) need to stop this from getting worse. I don’t want to go to UNLV. It’s closer to my house, yes, but I don’t want to pay their fees. I don’t have the cushion of financial aid or scholarships to help pay. My parents can barely help me out as it is. I’m pretty much winging it in the “paying for school each semester” department. I could very easily keep this sabbatical going, but why? I don’t have a particularly stable job to keep me out of school which is usually the reason why people who quit going to school. And truth be told, I miss going to school.

Blah. Same old problems cropping up. I just have to keep the faith, even as those around me lose theirs.

I’ve got so many plans this month. I was looking at my calendar on my phone because if it’s not there, I’ll forget it, haha. San Gennaro Feast, my cousin’s Special Olympics meet, and the Henderson ArtFest on Mother’s Day weekend, Prince Caspian on the 16th (YAY!!!), my sister’s graduation the day after, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull the weekend after, Metro Station/Forever the Sickest Kids/The Cab at the end of the month on the “Long Hair, Don’t Care” tour. Whew. I’m kinda glad that I’ve got so many things to do. Keeps my mind off things.

The video for “That Green Gentlemen (Things Have Changed)” by Panic at the Disco premiered the other day. I like it. It’s cute and fits the song pretty well. With the video premiere, it got me thinking that I should prolly update the Panic Timeline, rofl. But like I said earlier, I just don’t have the motivation. I really should though. It looks so sad without updates.

What is it with me and listening to people? No, I take that back. They talk at me, and frankly, I don’t give a shit about their problems or anything like that. Being quiet =/= wanting to listen to other people’s shitty problems. I tune them out most of the time, smiling and pretending I care. That’s horrible to admit, isn’t it? I think is why I keep to myself a lot. People - in general - bore me. I mean, I try to make friends with people, but honestly, half the time, they’re not people I want to associate myself with. I can’t be the only person who feels this way. Maybe my standards are too high. I dunno. Something to ponder.

Half the things I laugh at aren’t really that funny, but I laugh because that’s the polite thing to do. At least I’ve noticed myself laughing at people’s jokes. But in my head, I’m thinking, “that’s not funny, why are you laughing?” My sense of humor is very strange, I suppose. “In my life, why do I smile at people who I’d much rather kick in the eye?” I seek out individual forms of pleasure: music being my drug of choice. Music you can listen to on your own. Music you can take into you and let it change you.

I told you I was feeling emo. Now I’m gonna write some extremely shitty poetry and cope, haha.

?: “Do people talk at you, or do you do the talking at people?”

Feeling :  creative  Listening :  Bombastic Love - Britney Spears  Reading :  Atonement & Secret Smile

Another one of my patented stream of consciousness blogs….

On my two days off from work last week I laid up in bed, trying to fight my illness. But I’m too young to fight it (if you know what that means, cookie for you). I’ve got a sore throat, in all its phlemgh-y goodness. Last week it was my nose, this week, it’s my throat. Eeuuuwww.

I haven’t been this sick in ages. I avoided picking up my phone and leaving my house unless I absolutely had to, because basically I couldn’t talk. Luckily my mom’s the only one who was blowing up my phone but I couldn’t ignore her any longer. I think my dad snuck on his phone and told her to call me when he saw me sprawled out on the couch the other day. For a few days there, I sounded like my dad, who is also sick. All flat and deep. Guh.

I decided to jump on the bandwagon and get a Flickr account. I’ve called it “Her Greatest Hits Collection.” I’ve gone through and selected all of my favourite photos that I’ve taken over the years. Even if it means digging up shiznit from YEARS ago. Just pictures I’ve taken that visually look good, remind me of good times, and all that.

I’ve installed the Flickr widget for WordPress, and the LibraryThing widget too, if you didn’t already guess. *points to sidebar*

I’ve decided to take stock of all the shows I’ve seen here on the Strip so far.

Thunder from Down Under - twice
Spamalot at the Wynn
Carrot Top at the Luxor
Mamma Mia at the Bay
Mystere at TI

Carrot Top was good too. His use of props during the show was seamless. Loved his rock and roll bit at the end. He parodied everybody in costume. A lot of his jokes catered to the tourist crowd, but I know that most of the people in the crowd that night were employees. So they weren’t laughing, rofl.

I wasn’t sure how they were gonna fit all the Abba songs into Mamma Mia with the information that I knew about the show beforehand, but they did it! And it was really good! It’s definitely for adults. There was adult language (when Donna says “holy shit” during the show, I heard this little kid sitting behind us say, “She said shit!”), references to drugs and sex that I don’t think a child would understand, but it was fun nonetheless. Seeing those Abba costumes was a trip. I really had a good time, save for the fact that my sister - FOR SOME REASON - drove in a big circle to get to the Bay. She knows where it is. Before I worked there, we had been there a couple of times. I’m like, “The fuck?” I swear, I can’t take her anywhere, rofl.

Mystere was amazing. It was a dress rehearsal, but there weren’t any accidents or anything during the show. There was so much going on that I didn’t know what to focus on. The comic relief was seamless, and clearly there to help fill the time in changing sets.

There was one performer that I called la Bebe, which means “the baby” in French, but her actual character name is Bebe Francois. So I was pretty close. She had the baby thing down pat, down to the little laugh and movements. Then there was sort of a caricature of a clown without makeup, wearing a messy suit and wearing black Converse. If the website is correct (and they say information changes constantly), his character’s name is Brian le Petit. He warmed up the audience and had his own act during the show. Very funny!!

The music was live too. They were set up on either side of the stage. Mostly new age, but it definitely helped the story along. I miss that in live theatre! Spamalot had a fake band in their pit. I felt cheated, haha. And we were too far up at Mamma Mia to see if there was a live band or not.

Loads of audience participation too. Baby Francois chose a woman in the audience early in the show to play with her big ball and called her Mama. Then there was a part where la bebe stole a golf cart thing and whisked her “mama” away. La bebe and her “mama” appeared during one of the scenes later on, riding in the golf cart, and her “mama” was dressed like a clownish version of la bebe!

I went with my friend M, and there was a scene where two guys in green pants did a scene called “Hand to Hand.” They were really bendy and the shapes they created with their two bodies was mind-bottling. I turned to M and said, “If only men like that existed in real life.” I was joking of course. I couldn’t date a guy hotter than me. And M said derisively, “They’re all gay.” haha.

There’s just so much to say that I would probably take the rest of this entry to gush, but if you ever come to Vegas, I would highly recommend taking in a Cirque show. I’m re-reading what I wrote, and of all the cool stuff we saw: the guy with the cube at the beginning, the trampolines, the Taiko drumming, the double faces, and the Chinese poles, all I can talk about is la bebe. Freudian slip, maybe? haha!

The only show I wish I had seen was Siegfried and Roy. I’d told my parents for years that we should go. We had been coming to Vegas for close to a decade before we finally moved here. Seeing Siegfried and Roy’s billboard gracing the Mirage was one of those things that you saw as you drove past the Strip from the 15. But they always said, “Next time.” Next time became never, because then there was the accident. *le sigh* There is rumours that they want to make a comeback, but I think their time has passed, considering.

There’s something to be said
about self-control as
you starve yourself
to the pain
Wasting away like the breeze
Stones in a river
Captured
All she can think about is
how empty her life is
in relation to
her empty stomach

I write my best poetry when I’m feeling emo.

I ganked this from my friend Corinne’s MySpace blog. We went and saw Cloverfield last night, and it was a really excellent movie. But instead of writing out what I thought, I pretty much agreed with her, so here’s our combined review. I put my additional commentary into it with parentheses…

I don’t want to give too much away. In fact, I will give this piece of advice to anyone who wants to see it: The less you know about the movie, the better. Another word of important advice: STAY IN THE THEATER TO WATCH THE MOVIE UNTIL THE CREDITS END ALL THE WAY THROUGH. (I made it a point to stay until the end of the credits. I was like, “The lights haven’t gone up yet. Maybe we’ll find out more!!”) This is very important and crucial to the whole mystery that is Cloverfield. Yes, you will be anxious as hell for the damn marathon list of credits to roll up and it will feel like it will take forever, but trust me, IT WILL BE WORTH IT, especially if you love a good mystery. On the surface, it’s a monster movie, something that has been done many times before, but it’s a mystery at it’s core. Something different. Trust me.

I will say that I believe that Cloverfield is a parable for modern times. It’s a monster movie for the internet generation. Nowadays the internet and websites like Youtube where anyone can upload whatever videos they want dominates our lives. It is the first movie of it’s type that I have seen that simulates the feeling of someone actually videotaping all the action that takes place throughout the whole movie, giving it a realistic feel. When you first start watching it, it is disconcerting because you don’t know what to expect. It almost feels like we are invading the characters’ personal space, which felt odd and voyeuristic, even uncomfortable. Like I said, this is a parable for the internet age, so in some weird way, it imitates reality because in all forms of media in our time period is saturated with various outlets of peeking into peoples’ private lives. (The whole theater started laughing when the Statue of Liberty’s head went flying down the street and landed near everyone ’cause the characters onscreen whipped out their camera phones. I think it was more of a “Dude, I totally do that!” kinda laugh, you know. The “mea culpa” laugh).

There are many mysteries in the movie that cannot easily be explained. I went through a few websites tonight trying to decipher some clues. I recommend you look for the clues on the internet AFTER you see the movie and already know what happens. This is a movie that will have you and your friends talking and debating about it for hours. It was suspenseful, funny, sad, violent, gross and disgusting at times, and frustrating because Gill and I found ourselves yelling at some of the stupidities of the main characters and the other people around them. I believe JJ Abrams wanted us to see the stupidity of human nature during a crisis, which makes sense. Gill and I screamed a lot during the movie because there are some truly frightening moments in it, and what I thought was interesting are the things that you don’t see that are the scariest because it leaves a lot to your imagination and leaves more of an impact. (Yeah, dumbasses around us kept giving us looks. I was gonna dump my soda on their heads!)

There are 9/11 allusions all over the place, which I expected because the movie is set in New York City. I actually got a headache watching Cloverfield, not because I didn’t enjoy the movie, because I did, but I was so much on edge and wondered what was going to happen next. (I drank too much before the movie so that’s the only physical discomfort I experienced during the film. I had to use the ladies room when they got stopped in the mall. That, and I got hungry even though I ate a small bag of popcorn before the movie, rofl).

It was a little annoying at times that the editing was uneven because it is supposed to simulate a handheld video camera so that could have been the other reason I had a headache. Maybe this is a new form of cinema verite, although I don’t know what other kind of movie would have a story that would require this type of editing. However, I read critics’ reviews that compare Cloverfield to The Blair Witch Project in terms of how it was filmed. Despite all that, I enjoyed the movie very much and I liked that it didn’t have a typical Hollywood ending, although in a strange way, I expected that it was going to end the way it did. Some people said, “That’s gay!” when it finally ended. I heard one guy say, “I felt kind of cheated.” I didn’t think so, although I had mixed feelings about the end. Part of me thought the ending was appropriate, part of me thought that maybe it should have ended differently. But like I said before, even if you think the movie has ended the way that you think it does, there is that very last clue at the end of the end credits that will make you think otherwise. You will leave the theater asking yourself many questions. I know I did. (OH GOD, Corinne and me were debating this in the car on the way to In ‘n’ Out. We didn’t know what to make of it, we were so confuzzled!)

NOW GO SEE IT ALREADY!!!!

So yeah, if you want a good mystery/horror/thriller, go see Cloverfield. I was really getting into it. There was a part where the military was raining hell on the creature, and the characters were all hiding in stairwells. I saw the creature, and yelped, “RUN BITCH!!” rofl. That got a few laughs/weird looks from the peanut gallery. I always get into a movie when I watch it. I’m yelling at the screen, I’m bouncing up and down, I’m laughing and clapping my hands. I dunno. There are some places I can contain my excitement; a movie theater is NOT one of them.

Ugh, ugh! I go back to school next Tuesday. There just isn’t enough time in the world to do nothing. I’ve spent half this vacation, feeling achy, sneezing, and coughing into tissues. That is not fair.

Plus I have no money for books. I’m serious. Nada. And I can’t do the library thing again because most of my classes are straight textbook classes, boo. I am living on whatever cash I have in my wallet, which isn’t much. Luckily payday is this week, so I should be okay until then. But still.

Well, it’s late, and I have to work, so I hope this entry made some sense. At least it got out all the stuff in my head.

?: “Have you ever written a stream of consciousness blog? Just wrote whatever came to you and didn’t stop until it was out of your head?”

Feeling :  artistic  Listening :  Reba McEntire & Kelly Clarkson's CMT Crossroads performance  Reading :  Confessions of a Teen Sleuth

This entry started with completely different intentions, plus the time change has made me batty. But then I felt like letting it all out, so I did.

I’ve decided that the title of my first book will be Global Warming: It’s All a Crock of Shit. I remember writing a short paper on this for my Environmental Science class a few years ago. I honestly have not seen any evidence to the contrary.

Live Earth wasted more resources than it saved. You want to raise awareness? I applaud you. You’re using your celebrity like Bono saves Africa. But don’t throw a concert! There are so many other ways they could’ve raised awareness for environmental issues using their celebrity.

The same could be said of Bono too, I suppose. All the consumerism and brand names and hypocrisy in that sense. It’s hard to find a balance. There’s only so much money pumping we can do before it all becomes moot.

I’m all for environmental issues - which I suppose sets me apart from my Republican brethren; I identify more with moderate conservatives anyways - because we are a wasteful society. We complain about the price of gas, how much energy we use, and all that. There are many ways we can change these things on a personal level that would make a huge difference for the greater good.

I learned the basics of this in first grade, over 20 years ago. I don’t know why the rest of the world hasn’t gotten with the program. If you’re like me and you do your part, obviously that last statement doesn’t apply to you. But for the rest of you, what’s your excuse?

Weird climate changes are a part of the evolution of a planet, i.e. Mars. Scientific evidence states that it could support/could have supported life because of the supposed frozen ice underneath the crust. Yet, for the most part, it’s hard to get to (takes 30 years to get there) and as far as we know, uninhabitable.

Also, from scientific evidence in the past, the change in climate that caused the last Ice Age and similar phenomenon in the past was a natural occurence. No amount of human meddling caused them to happen. So if you want to sit there and tell me humans are at fault in any sense of the phrase for the climate changes in our immediate past, I’m gonna hafta smack a ho. No scientific evidence to the contrary has convinced me yet. Maybe you, but not me.

I was checking out Real Climate, and it seems to show the “other side” of my opinion. A bit too scientific-y for my taste, but well worth a bookmark and read-through.

It’s this culture of fear that we’ve allowed ourselves to evolve into. If there isn’t some huge issues to freak out over, people don’t feel normal. Sure, there are definite threats in this world that deserve our attention, but when we start heaping time and attention on the pointless ones, one begins to question the validity of freaking out in the first place.

I point you to an excellent article by Michael Crichton for Parade magazine that sums up the idea of a culture of fear. Yeah, it was written to pimp his book “State of Fear,” but he has some good arguments. The opening paragraphs:

This year I turned 62, and I find I have acquired—along with aches and pains—a perspective on the world that I lacked as a younger person. I now recognize that for most of my life I have felt burdened by highly publicized fears that decades later did not turn out to be true. I was reminded of this when I came across this 1972 statement about climate: “We simply cannot afford to gamble…We cannot risk inaction. Those scientists who [disagree] are acting irresponsibly. The indications that our climate can soon change for the worse are too strong to be reasonably ignored.” This author wasn’t concerned about global warming. He was worried about global cooling and the coming ice age.

We’re all going to freeze! Or is it sizzle?
It may be mostly forgotten now, but back then many climate scientists shared his concern: Temperatures around the world had fallen steadily for 30 years, dropping half a degree in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. Pack ice was increasing. Glaciers were advancing. Growing seasons had shortened by two weeks in only a few years. In 1975, Newsweek noted “ominous signs that weather patterns have begun to change…with serious political implications for just about every nation.” Scientists were predicting that “the resulting famines could be catastrophic.”

And if there wasn’t already enough books on the market about the subject, I would honestly have this be my debut work. Completely out of character for my gentle nature, but it’s something I feel strongly about.

?: “What socioeconomic issue could you argue for or against for hours?”