T en Years Older

Even though I probably only look four years older.

Haha.

Goodbye '00's. Goodbye teenage years, drama, and high school life.
Hello turning 20 (and 21), hello college, grad school, moving out, making choices and growing up.

Well, that's the summary of my life. Let's see the decade in review by larger standards:

Favorite Songs of the Decade
1. Reptilia - The Strokes
2. Supermassive Black Hole - Muse
3. Henrietta- The Fratellis
4. The Boy with the Arab Strap - Belle and Sebastian
5. Bleeding Love - Leona Lewis
6. There's a Reason These Tables are Numbered Honey, You Just Haven't Thought of it Yet - Panic! At the Disco
7. 1901 - Phoenix
8. Maps - Yeah Yeah Yeah's
9. Disturbia - Rihanna
10. Paparazzi - Lady Gaga

Favorite Movies of the Decade
1. Pan's Labyrinth
2. In Brugess
3. 500 Days of Summer
4.The Departed
5. The Dark Knight
6. Pirates of the Caribbean
7. Donnie Darko
8. Kill Bill
9. Requiem For a Dream
10. Moulin Rouge

Favorite Shows of the Decade
1. Supernatural
2. Criminal Minds
3. Glee
4. NCIS
5. Bones
6. Fringe
7. White Collar
8. Castle
9. Dexter
10. The Big Bang Theory

Favorite Books read this Decade
1. A Clockwork Orange -Burgess
2. Catcher in the Rye - Sallinger
3. Rant - Palahniuk
4. Invisible Monsters - Palahniuk
5. Satanic Verses- Rushdie
6. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Thompson
7. The Witching Hour - Rice
8. Interview with the Vampire - Rice
9. From the Corner of His Eye - Koontz
10. Salem's Lot - King

Initials of Guy's I've been involved with/into this decade (Well 10 of them at least)
1. ZC
2.GO
3.AS
4. TH
5. BM
6. KP
7. DO
8. RO
9. BB
10. JP

Ten New Technologies/Tech Things of the Decade.
1. WIRELESS
2. Flat Screens
3. YouTube
4. IPhones
5. IPods
6. Flash Drives
7. DVR
8. HD
9. Wiii
10. GPS

Best things about the decade:
1. College
2. Turning 18
3. New Friends
4. Music Appreciation
5. Web-design skills
6. Piercings
7. Beer Bike
8. Going overseas
9. Figuring out more about myself
10. Leaving High School

That's all I can come up with at this hour.
We'll see what 2010 brings!

Rain Man

43. Finish AFI's Top 100 Movies (37/123) (They redid the list recently) and other tops
a. Laughs (10/100)
b. Thrills (27/100)
c. Passions (24/100)
d. Musicals (12/25)
e. Cheers (19/100)
f. 10 Top 10 (33/100)
Saw the movie Rain Man. Soooo good and so touching. I'm too lazy to write about it so all I have to say is GO WATCH IT.

Taxi Driver

43. Finish AFI’s Top 100 Movies (37/123) (They redid the list recently) and other tops

a. Laughs (10/100)

b. Thrills (27/100)

c. Passions (24/100)

d. Musicals (12/25)

e. Cheers (18/100)

f. 10 Top 10 (33/100)

So I recently watched the film Taxi Driver featuring Robert De Niro and a young Jodie Foster. For those of you who don't know what movie this is, it's where the lines "Are you looking at me? Well are you?" Come from.

Anyway, don't read the rest of this if you don't want to know what happens.

Taxi driver is a film about Travis, a young man (who is hinted to be a Vietnam vet), living in New York. In order to cope with his insomnia, he gets a job as a taxi driver. The film shows life at the time as viewed by an the average intelligence, somewhat socially inept Travis as he deals with people like Betsy (A campaign worker for a fictional senator) and the scum he drives around at night. Much of the story lies around his alienation after seeing this new world (He attempts to assassinate the senator) and his decision to fight this crime and take matters in his own hands, including freeing a young prostitue (Jodie Foster's character) from her pimp and convincing her to return home. He's injured in the process, people hail him as a hero for trying to clean up the city. Despite this, Travis merely returns to being a taxi driver, unsure what's ahead for him.

I definitely understand why the film made the list. As a scorsece film it has strong filmography elements in the views he chooses to shoot from, as while as the locations used. Plot-wise, it brings forward the issue of alienation of vets as while as the two sides of society, both of which he does not belong to and which require fixing. Yet despite this knowledge of flaw, Travis becomes aware that he is uncapable of fixing it all.

So that's another movie off the list. :) We'll see what I manage to do next.

Three Days of Hell: The Tamale Process

Listening to: "Chasing Pavements"- Adele

Reading: "The Scarpetta Factor" - Patricia Cornwall

It's tamale season in my household!
Haha. It's a long, tedious and painful process, but its such a tradition I both look forward to and dread it.

What has sucked this year is I'm sick! Arrgh. (And I'm a pirate). Never fails. I'm always sick around Christmas.

But since I went through this hell of a three day process, I figured I'd share it with everyone.

Day 1:
So the first day is probably the least time consuming over all. It takes a long time because all you do is cook the meat. But once it's all been seperated and put on to cook you can leave it alone on the stove. (Or rather, you don't have to stand with it. You should probably still be in the house obviously). Cooking the meat doesn't sound too bad, but when you make as many tamales as we do, ( I think we're at around 12 dozen right now. We might be making more!), there are at least 3 pots of meat cooking at any time during the day. And you do have to make sure they have water and are getting tender enough.

Day 2:
Making the chili takes a while but it's a pretty brainless process. We use red chili and it really just takes a lot of boiling, blending and draining. The chili often has to be thinned before it's added to the meat.

Day 3:
The by-far most time consuming, though fun, part is definitely the process of putting the tamales together. It definitely takes its toll though. My mom and I always get sick the next day, usually from having our hands soaked in water for hours at a time. This day just takes adding the masa to the husks and putting chili in the husks. My mom used to do this by herself (and after the first thirty tamales you want to kill yourself, imagine doing 100!). Its a day long process. With my help, we can get it down to four hours-ish. Then we put them in the cooker and wait.

We give them out for christmas thankfully because by the time we're done, we don't want to see a tamale for a whole year.

Is it sad that I relate to movie villans?

Patrick Dempsey's character: You're Crazy.
Queen Narissa: No. Spiteful. Vindictive. Very large. But never crazy.

Haha. There are some days (like today really), where I have moments others view as odd. And while, sure they can be spiteful, angry, snarky or pure nonesensical, I never really see them as truly crazy.

Which is probably why this quote made me fall off the couch cracking up and made my mother give me a very odd look.

Perhaps it's not so strange that I'm relating to the evil queen more than Giselle.

101 in 1001

So I've been thinking about doing this for a while, but Valorie's reminder in response to my first new blog in a while encouraged me to finally do it. Though it's pretty minor I count this as my first step to the "action rather than reaction" policy I hope to adopt.


So, the mission: Complete 101 preset tasks in 1001 days. The tasks must be quantifiable, with a clear definition and end. They also have to be a stretch, nothing too easy (like blink 100 times in a day). They have to represent some effort on your part. Do YOU accept?

Start: December 16, 2009

End: September 11, 2012

In progress

Finished

Learning

1. Finish my bachelors degree

2. Take two random courses with friends that I normally wouldn’t try (0/2)

3. Sit in on a class at another university.

4. Read five books on philosophy/thought/perception (0/5)

5. Teach someone something

6. Intern somewhere

7. Apply to grad school

8. Read three different best 100 Greatest Novels of all time (Some overlap, and I’m re-reading ones I don’t remember) Time (11/100) Modern Library Board (12/100) Modern Library Readers(18/100)

9. Learn more Spanish

10. Take the jeopardy test

11. Take part/have a major role in a research experiment

12. Have a learning experience abroad

Creative

13. Lear Guitar better

14. Learn another instrument

15. Take another dance course

16. Get published in some form

17. Do at least one thing design related (newspaper, website, magazine)

18. Get at least 100 pages into a novel

19. Try three different types of art

20. Finish my current writing journal

21. Create a spontaneous journal

22. Make a scrapbook

23. Make a collage

24. Design an outfit (Sew it and all)

25. Blog twice a week

26. Learn to knit

27. Knit three scarves (0/3)

28. Write a song

Travel

29. Go Abroad again

30. Go to Boston or Seattle

31. Go to D.C.

32. Go on a road trip

33. Spontaneously drive somewhere

34. Go Camping

Acts of kindness

35. Leave a surprise of a stranger

36. Pick up someone’s coffee tab

37. Donate my hair

38. Do an angel tree angel on my own

39. Do something over-the-top for my mom

40. Donate old things to good will

41. Leave an inspiring note

42. Fifteen random acts of kindness (0/15)

Culture

43. Finish AFI’s Top 100 Movies (35/123) (They redid the list recently) and other tops

a. Laughs (10/100)

b. Thrills (26/100)

c. Passions (24/100)

d. Musicals (12/25)

e. Cheers (18/100)

f. 10 Top 10 (33/100)

44. Watch 3 foreign films (0/3)

45. Attend a symphony event

46. Go to the opera

47. Go to three new museums

48. See a new play

49. See 10 Indie films (0/10)

50. Attend two cultural festivals (0/2)

51. Find 5 new (unknown) artists that I completely like (0/5)

52. Go to a poetry/art/ presentation gallery

53. Attend an upscale event

54. Go to three openings/premiers (0/3)

Health/Wellness

55. Go two weeks as a vegetarian

56. Take a yoga class

57. Practice Karate for three months

58. Meditate at least twice a day for 6 months

59. Go a week without coffee

60. Workout every other day for 3 months

61. Go climbing three more times

62. Cook five new things (0/5)

63. Go a month without fighting with my dad (0/31 days)

64. Try getting up earlier than necessary for two months

65. Run once a week

66. Go on a longer run with my dad

Fun/Adventurous

67. Go stargazing three times (0/3)

68. Buy and finish an origami book

69. Fly a kite

70. Go on a picnic

71. Go to a muse concert

72. Go to another techno concert

73. Cook and bake a meal for someone

74. Garden/ grow something for three months

75. Send 10 things to postsecret (0/10)

76. Drive spontaneously somewhere and spend three days there

77. Get a tattoo (and/or another piercing, it can be a bonus if I do both)

78. Let someone give me a makeover of sorts

79. Let someone convince me to do something (drastic) that I wouldn’t normally do

80. Take five pictures a week

81. Make 10 people mix cds with music they wouldn’t normally try (0/10)

82. Make something unique/innovative

83. Watch two sunrises in unique places (0/2)

84. Watch two sunsets in unique places (0/2)

85. Talk to/meet/make friends with a guy I find interesting/attractive

86. Go paintballing

87. Play lasertag

88. Shoot a gun

89. Go to the arcade

90. See a beach

91. See a mountain

92. See a foot of snow

93. Finish the beer pong table of beer caps with the boys

94. Go Sailing

95. Do a puzzle (Sudoku/crosswork/etc) once a week

96. Send 25 letters via snail mail to friends (0/25)

97. Go to a drive-in

98. Ride a motorcycle

99. Attend a protest

100. Celebrate day of the dead

101. Have a real new years celbration

I've already started. Wish me luck! :)

Ch-ch-changes

I find it funny...

That despite humans being naturally resistant to change, hoping with every fiber of their being that things will return to an accepted status quo,

It takes a very short amount of time for a change in our normal life to become the new status quo.

I don't know how I feel about it. While at school I was missing one thing (not home though), and now that I'm home, I'm missing something different entirely.

I want my friends. Or one in particular.

I hadn't realized how normal, how easy, how natural it is to be with him.

"I'm gonna live and live now

Get what I want, I know how
One roll for the whole she-bang
One throw, that bell will go clang
Eye on the target and wham
One shot, one gun, and bam
Hey Mr. Arnstein, here I am"
-Don't Rain On My Parade -Barbara Streisand

I came to my 2nd year of college with expectations: more knowledge and assuredness of the path I was on, more interesting subjects, new friends, a relationship and more experiences.

Boy was I wrong.

Nothing really went as planned. I changed majors from the one I'd been sure of since Freshman year of high school to one that had just been a hobby. I lost interest. I didn't really "change friends" per say so much as didn't get the chance to see them because we began frequenting different scenes. I lost my best friend (and love-interest) at Rice. But I seem to have found a new one (best friend. Not so much on the love interest though. More of an inconvenient attraction really).

But I'm not disappointed.

Well, not really.
I mean, life rarely if ever lives up to our expectations. And while I'm sad I lost my best friend and that I'm leaving the familiarity of what I thought would be my life. But I don't think i regret it. Because life changes for a reason right? And it opened up my eyes a lot. Mainly to the fact that I was letting things happen rather than making them happen.

So I'm going to live and live now.

Well, enough about my life. Here's some recent things and my thoughts on them:

1) Adam Lambert's new CD is AWESOME! Highly suggest it.
2) I love Love Actually. :) Just thought I'd throw that in there. SOOOO GOOOD.
3) So my friend Zach and I have creepily similar taste in Pandora stations. But we suggest: The Strokes, Ace of Base and 3oh!3. I also suggest Glee and Madonna.
4) Same Zach convinced me to watch Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with him (OMG Johnny Depp looks fucking weird as a fat bald guy). Anywho, fucked up movie, but very interesting. Gives good insight into gonzo journalism. And I need to buy the book (I may read it before I give it away as Zach's christmas present....). If you need proof to see/read this, remember it influence Avenged Sevenfold's song "Bat Country."
5) So Thursday nights are something like 50 cent or so for boneless wings at B-dubs (Buffalo Wild Wings). We go almost every Thursday and it is crazy fun.
6) Try Starbucks' Creme Brulee Latte (Shameless plug)
7) I love love love Christmas shopping and giving Christmas gifts.

On Further Note:
I want to come up with a few new year's resolutions / life changing things to do. I'm going to really try doing this whole "Act, don't react" thing and change my life and hopefully other people's lives.

So if you have suggestions let me know.

I'll try to blog again soon. :)