2012 Is The Year For Movies--Part 1

I realize the year is half way over already, but I have been excited for the movies that were slated to come out in 2012 since like last summer. I'll admit, some I was super excited for and they ended up being a bit disappointing (I'll talk about those too), but for the most part all of them have lived up to the hype.

I hear that 2013 is going to be awesome too, but let's just focus on this year (after all... I hear this is our last anyway, so guess Hollywood knew that and decided to do the best they could to make it a great year before the apocalypse.)

This post ended up turning out to be way longer than I thought (there's been a lot of movies, guys, give me a break), so I broke it up into two parts. This is Part 1 (movies that have already been released):

Let's start off with the fantastic movies that have already been released that, in my opinion, if you still haven't seen them, you really need to rethink your priorities.

First up is The Hunger Games:


I absolutely loved the books, and the movie does an amazing job. Even if you've never read the books, I think you would still enjoy the movie. Everything is very well done, the cast is PERFECT, and like I just absolutely loved it. The only thing that bugged me was a few of the effects/camera angles and techniques, but other than that it was amazing. I wanted to see it again but I was still in school so I wasn't able to, but as soon as it comes out on DVD, I'm buying it.

The second that should really be first, but I'm going by what came out earlier, is The Avengers:



Like, guys. I cannot express to you enough how much I loved this movie. It has everything, action, humor, hot men, mystery, a bit of love, and did I mention hot men? I feel like everyone has seen this, but I still come across people that tell me they still haven't seen it yet, and I'm completely flabbergasted and tell them they're not allowed to speak to me again until they do.

I HAVE SEEN IT FIVE TIMES (3 times in 3D, which is SUPER cool and if you can I recommend you see it, and twice in 2D). DOES THAT NOT TELL YOU ANYTHING???? (I honestly don't think I've seen a movie in the theaters that many times before, and for 4 of the 5 times it was in a period of 24 hours that I saw it, 2 in one day and 2 in another. And all of those times I paid with my own money.) I cannot stress to you enough how much your life has been lacking without seeing this movie. Ok... I'm done now. Go see it so we can be friends.

Those two are the ones that I endorse the most, the following are ones that I thoroughly enjoyed but I won't force you to go see them in order to be my friend.

While we're sticking with things that have already come out, the following are movies that might not have gotten a lot of hype, but that I was excited for and thoroughly enjoyed:

1. This Means War (TRAILER)-It has Chris Pine, Thomas Hardy, and Reese Witherspoon, I think you can probably already guess why I enjoyed it so much (hint: CHRIS PINE). But it was actually quite funny, Chelsea Handler is in it and she was hilarious. And yes, I did buy the BluRay/DVD combo pack already.
2. Moonrise Kingdom (TRAILER)-It is a VERY Wes Anderson film, but it was funny and thoroughly enjoyable. The main character (boy) was very entertaining and everyone did a great job, really. I highly recommend it.
3. Men in Black 3 (TRAILER)- I was a little hesitant about this when I first heard they were making another MIB movie (I never saw the 2nd one cause I heard it was so terrible), but then I saw the trailer and I wanted to go see it. I liked it a lot. I will say though that like everything I've seen after The Avengers has been hard to be enthusiastic about because it's not The Avengers, but I liked MIB 3. And really, you should just see it for Josh Brolin's SPOT ON impression of Tommy Lee Jones. He did an amazing job, y'all. Also, any Flight of the Conchords fans will recognize the villain, cause it's Jermaine!
4. The Five-Year Engagement (TRAILER)-Like this was funny and uber cute, and just Jason Segal and Emily Blunt are just perfect together. It was a very good movie with a very touching storyline.
5. 21 Jump Street (TRAILER)-Now I only just recently saw this one, and I had waited cause it looked a bit dumb to me, but both of my brothers and several friends told me it was hilarious so I saw it when it got to the dollar theater. Yes it was kind of ridiculous, but I was laughing at everything. And of course Johnny Depp has a cameo that I knew was coming but how he came out I totally was not expecting. Also, I think I might like Dave Franco better than his brother James.

The following movies I meant to go see or are meaning to see but I haven't yet, but I will:

1. The Secret World of Arrietty (TRAILER)- My brother says it's awesome, so I'm waiting for him to buy the DVD of it so I can borrow it from him. :)
2. The Lorax (TRAILER)- I've just always loved Dr. Seuss and this story, so I'll end up seeing it eventually some how.
3. The Cabin in the Woods (TRAILER)-Umm it's a Joss Whedon film, may I remind you that he wrote and directed The Avengers? Yeah. Also Chris Hemsworth is in it. I may just wait till my horror fan co-worker buys it and borrow it from him. :)
4. Bernie (TRAILER)-You guys know how much I love me some Jack Black. I first heard about this movie because a couple of the actors that are in it acted in one of my classmate's final project for my acting class. Then a friend of mine went and saw it and told me she loved it and thought it was hilarious. So I'm going to try to go see it while it's still in theaters. Anyone want to join me?
5. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (TRAILER)-It has some of my favorite British people (Dame Judi Dench AND Maggie Smith y'all!) in it and for me that's reason enough to go see it.

And now on to the disappointing stuff. The following movies I was so excited for but they turned out to not be worth all the hype:

1. The Woman in Black (TRAILER)-Now I wouldn't say I didn't like this movie, but I was expecting it to be a lot more scarier than it was. It was great to see Daniel Radcliffe in something that wasn't Harry Potter, but other than that it was more suspenseful than scary (if that makes sense). It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't really what I was hoping for.
2. Dark Shadows (TRAILER)-I had high hopes for this one after seeing the trailer. I mean it looked hilarious. Yeah... all those funny parts in the trailer? Only funny parts in the movie and even those gags were overdone and reused which made them no longer funny. I mean I think the actors did a good job, but the plot wasn't very clear and ran long in some parts, and the twist was kind of dumb and a little too late in my opinion. Perhaps Johnny Depp and Tim Burton should take a break from each other for a while?

The following I was pretty excited about, but after hearing reviews and opinions from friends and family, I think I'll pass on them:

1. Mirror Mirror (TRAILER)-I was mildly intrigued by it, but I heard it was kind of odd. I might end up seeing it eventually, but we'll see.
2. The Pirates! Band of Misfits (TRAILER)-I was super excited to see this, but my friend told me she was kind of disappointed with it. I think I am going to see this eventually (I'm a sucker for any movie that has David Tennant, and he's one of the voices), but I'll wait till it gets to RedBox.
3. The Raven (TRAILER)-I like John Cusack. I like Edgar Allen Poe. I like mystery. So of course I was excited about this. But I heard kind of bad reviews on it, so I never did end up seeing it. This one I'll probably wait for it to be on cable and I'll watch it at my parents' house.
4. Snow White and The Huntsman (TRAILER)-I was on the fence on this one. Part of me was really excited because hello Chris Hemsworth! Charlize Theron! but hesitant because umm Kristen Stewart. My family went and saw this and they all told me that the effects were cool and Charlize and Chris do a great job and Kristen was tolerable but that the plot was bad. I might try to see this too if anything just to see Chris Hemsworth and the effects, but let's just say I'm not going to try that hard.
5. Prometheus (TRAILER)-I am actually going to be seeing this on Wednesday, but I have a groupon and it expires soon and this is the only thing playing that I haven't already seen and was kind of intrigued to see. I'll be honest I'm really only going to see Michael Fassbender, but I've heard pretty bad reviews of it and a coworker told me he thought it sucked. (Which is sad cause this was one I was excited about too.) So... I'll let you know how it goes.

Part 2 will have all the movies that I'm excited for that have yet to come out!

I Survived Y'all!

It's official, y'all. I am now the proud owner of a Master's of Arts Degree in Emerging Media and Communications.

This is my dear friend Syd. We're also known as For Reals (we remixed a song for our first class and have been friends ever since).

Oh, and in case you were curious I also made all A's for this semester, so YAY! The graduation ceremony was a week ago (if you want to read about my initial thoughts on the matter CLICK HERE), and since then I have been doing nothing but going to seeing movies (and a play) and catching up on all the TV shows I got behind on because of school (and reminding myself of others).

It's been AWESOME.

The last shows I need to catch up on are Being Human (US), Fringe, and Psych. I had like 60 something shows in my Hulu queue, and as of now I have 20. I consider this a small victory for myself.

And once I'm done with the shows I had already been watching, my next objective is to start watching the shows that I've heard so much about but hadn't wanted to start (Downton Abbey for example).

I have so many other things that I'm super excited about and want to tell you though.

So, be prepared because I'm getting back into blogging now that I'm done with school (and almost done catching up on my TV shows). I hope y'all have a fantastic Memorial Day, and look forward to the following posts that I'm going to try really hard to put up soon:

• 2012 is the YEAR for Movies (what I'm excited for)
• A Guide to Midnight Showings
• The man blog I started with my friend Anna (it's delightful, you should check it out now)
• A few projects I have coming up/want to do, including a podcast, and possibly an online radio station
• How I'm seeing Benedict Cumberbatch in an encore broadcast of Frankenstein
• The Road to Comic Con

That's what I have planned for the moment. In the meantime, feel free to read these couple entries I had put on my Tumblr about my wonderful coworker: CLICK HERE and HERE. Really you should take a gander at my Tumblr every now and then cause I always put funny stuff up there (or at least what I think is funny). :)

Anyway, I'm glad to be a normal social and functioning human being again! I've missed you guys!!!

1 Class Down, 2 more to go

I finished all the work for my creative performance today and now I can sit back and relax.

Well not really. I got a ton of stuff for my other two classes (thesis and screenwriting), but at least I don't have to worry about this other class. And because I know you guys TOTALLY want to hear my final project, here it is:

It's an audio play about a tour guide at a metal kazoo factory (It's 17 minutes FYI... hey... it's a play okay?!):

And because I know you guys ALSO want to hear about the crazy-ness that happened after I presented it to the class and to hear about a RIDICULOUS person in my class who also presented her project... (really it's a good story), you should click on the link below for my Tumblr post about it cause it comes complete with hilarious GIFS that adequately express my emotions (also you should read the tags at the bottom because they also add to the story and give you a better picture why I think this person is ridiculous):

CLICK HERE

Okie doke... that is all for now.

Just like 3 more weeks and I'm DONE. THREE MORE WEEKS.

It All Started With That Damn Squirrel

Two posts two days in a ROW!! I'd just like to preface this with saying, don't expect me to be posting everyday now. Today was just too weird of a day and I had too great of a story to not tell you what happened. After this I'll go into hiding again till the end of the semester. Promise.

This morning, on my way to work, I hit a squirrel.

I tried to slow down, but it was just going too fast and then I distinctly heard a thud. (Gosh, if I'm in my car, animals should just stay away. Things never work out well for them.)

I felt a tinge of sadness and guilt for hitting it, but it's not like it was enough for me to do anything. I continued on to work and carried on with my day and forgot about the squirrel for the most part.

Should have known that squirrel was a sign of how the day would go.

At lunch, I purposefully avoided looking at some lady? (I don't know I wasn't looking at her/him remember?) who was begging for money, holding out her hat to cars that were at the stop light. I don't carry cash, so it's not like I had any to give anyway.

Another sign?

By the end of the day, I had forgotten all about both, and I was tired and ready to go home. I even thought to myself... perhaps I'll take a power nap before I have to go to a rehearsal (because I agreed to help a classmate with her final project; I clearly have a problem with telling people no).

FYI, that power nap never happened. Here's what did:


As I was leaving work, I turned right out of the parking lot and went about 20 feet before I was waved down by an older (probably in his 40s) African American man, wearing, oddly enough, a "Master Thug" shirt (as in Mastercard... get it?) (But I'll be honest, I didn't notice the shirt till later on, it just seemed interesting compared to what happened next. Also, I only added that he was black so you could get an accurate description. I really didn't care that he was black.) Next to him was what I assumed was his son, who looked like he was 17 or so. I pulled over and rolled down my window to see what was up.

He asked if I had a jack that they could borrow because they had a flat tire. Seemed like an innocent enough request to me and we were literally RIGHT in front of my work building, so I parked and pulled out the jack for him.

But then he told me they didn't have a spare tire to replace it with, which made me wonder why they needed a jack then if they didn't have something. The guy told me that he was just in the building to talk to a lawyer on the 12th floor, and he pulled out his paperwork to prove it to me (it looked legit... legit... like I even know? Ugh whatever.) He said he was trying to get a divorce, which is why he was there meeting with the lawyer. He told me he didn't have any money, and all he had was $2 (so he couldn't buy a tire either), which he gladly offered me several times (I didn't take it).

After making excuses myself (I had to get to class, I didn't have any cash) and having them not work, I said I could drive him to the tire place, which was down the street (about 3 minutes away) and drop him off. So, he left his son to watch the car (which was now on my jack) and he came with me to the tire place.

Now before you start lecturing me about how this was a terrible idea, I get it okay. There were tons of things I should have done differently or not done... I understand. But this is what happened. And I'd like to think that if it hadn't been what I should be doing, I would have gotten a sinking feeling about him or the situation. But I didn't. So I carried on... as you should do now with my story:


On the way to the tire place he tells me his nickname is Mike but his given name is Columbus "like the explorer Christopher" (got it) and that he's not from around there so he doesn't really know where he is because he's from the Garland/Dallas/635 area. I tell him my name is Mattie, but that's it. He then proceeds to tell me that he's trying to get a divorce from his wife who he hasn't seen in awhile because she ran off with another woman (WHAT? Did I hear that right?). And he's trying to get the divorce done so that he can marry the boy's (the 17 year old that was with him) mother. He also tells me how much he has to pay for rent etc. and how much he had to pay for the lawyer (you know clearly illustrating to me that he has no money to buy this tire).

So the first trip to the tire place (that's right I said first as in there were multiple trips), we go and borrow a lug nut wrench from the tire people because mine wouldn't fit on their car (and luckily the tire dude was SUPER nice in letting us just take it.) And then I decide I'll be super nice and drive him back. He asks the tire dude how much a used tire will be ($35), and he looks at me wondering what I'll say.

I don't know what happened. I guess I thought... $35 isn't too much; this guy looks pretty sad and he just wants to get a divorce from his gay soon to be ex wife so he can marry this other chick and be a dad to this kid. I don't know. I don't know okay.


And so I told him it was fine and I'd buy it for him. He practically jumped for joy and said he had to serve me and stopped me from opening my own car door so he could hold it open for me. We drove back to his car, and I waited for him to take the tire off, and we then drove BACK to the tire place. I bought him a new tire and then drove back to his car so he could put it on.

The little trips were probably the most interesting because he told me about how he always had a feeling his soon to be ex was gay but he could never prove it. I asked how he found out (hey he was already sharing and I was kind of curious... hello I was thinking of you guys. I wanted a good story. Ugh... me and my writer inclinations dang it.). He told me he was in prison (Ummm what? Yeah I didn't ask him this time and he didn't share the reason.) and she had written him a letter telling him, and when he got out and came home he found her and realized it was all true.

He asked me how that could be. How could another woman just run off with another woman? He couldn't understand it and didn't know why people did that because God doesn't like that. God wouldn't make them that way on purpose would he? That's not what it says in the Bible... etc. (He went on but I really didn't say much or comment on anything he was saying... I just kind of said "I don't know" a lot and nodded and said "I understand." I'm also not commenting to you about this either because of other reasons, so just know these words were from him and I remained neutral and rather silent while he rambled.) He also told me about how he was taught to respect women and how a relationship is about doing things for each other and listening to each other. He said he knows how to treat his woman right, even in bed (Umm ok... TMI. Luckily this was the last trip back to the car and we were super close to it.) and then quickly added he didn't mean "no disrespect... but it's true." (Thank you for that.) He said he'd come visit me, I told him that was okay (I wasn't going to give him any kind of address because even though I had spent $35 and he could have theoretically paid me back, I didn't care enough to want to see this person ever again.)

I waited in the car for a bit while he changed out the tire and while his "son" was finishing up he came over to me.

Now this is what kind of made me wonder if I should have done what I did and helped him because the man had the audacity to ask me this.


He asked if he could have $5. I got kind of angry at this and thought he was pretty rude for asking considering everything I've done for him at this point. I told him again I didn't have any cash, and I couldn't give him any money. He said he wanted to buy cigarettes and I could use my card. (EXCUSE ME?) Not going to lie, I got pissed. I told him, "I am not buying you cigarettes. I just bought you a $35 tire, and I don't even know you." He could tell I was pissed at him for even asking and he quickly and profusely tried to apologize and say that I already did so much and it was fine and he was just asking and it's okay.

He finished putting the tire on, gave me my jack back, and then I left (with the hope and his promise that he'd take the wrench from the tire place back. I sure hope he did.).

So here's my question to you... in a world where everyone is distrusting of everyone else, where there are so few occasions where others do good deeds because we feel like they are just scamming us, or where we judge someone based on what they look like or how they are dressed, was I being too trusting? Should I have just said "Sorry sucks to be you; I have to go, give me my jack back"? Should I have just ignored his waving and kept driving because he didn't look how a "trustworthy" person looks? Was I being a good samaritan or was I a sucker and being played for a fool by the "Master thug"?

I'd like to think that I was doing the right Christ-like thing and because of that the Lord was watching out for me and made sure nothing bad went down, but honestly I don't know the answer myself.

But what I do know is that it was all because of that damn squirrel.

It Ended Where It Began

Um... so... hey guys!

Remember me?

Hey, I did say I wouldn't be able to post much till after I was done with school, and really I shouldn't even be typing this, but I'm hoping writing this out will help get my mind focused.

I have about 3 weeks till the end of my grad school career.

It's crazy, right?

And it's ending how it began.

With an emotional breakdown.

If you recall, when I started my grad school career I had so many problems with administrative type issues (financial aid and what not) that I broke down and started crying, worried that if I couldn't handle this, maybe I wasn't cut out for grad school after all.

And, now, I am so close to the end I can see it, and I'm almost there.

But there is so much I have to do before I get to the end. Once it all caught up to me, my stress was through the roof and I pretty much just lost it.

This happened a week or so ago, so I'm a little better now, but I'm probably just as stressed (if not more so since I'm a week from the deadline on most of these things).

It was a combination of many factors (which is always the case in emotional breakdowns, am I right?), that involved work, school, and church, and I almost gave up and just wanted to abandon everything. I called my mom and broke down in tears telling her I couldn't do it (ugh I'm tearing up now just thinking about it).

And even though my mom likes to criticize me sometimes (her way of trying to get me to be better, which I get), instead she told me that I could and that I needed to sit down and make a list of everything I needed to get done and what I had to do to complete that list (my mom, always the practical one).

Isn't it great how moms always seem to know what you need?

I'm still stressed, but I've made a lot of progress, which is important. But, this week and next I'm just going to be a grumpy, distracted, stressed out mess. I have a final project (which is almost completed) and accompanying paper due (not too stressed about that part but should probably write it sometime before then...) on the 16th for my acting class, and the 1st draft of my thesis is due on the 20th (yeah my blog which I have NO posts up for... this is the thing I'm freaking out about the most).

After the 20th, I'll be a little more personable and friendly... because after that I'll just have to do my thesis presentation and accompanying reflection paper (to wrap everything up), and then my 90 page script (of which I currently only have 26 pages of because I had to REWRITE the 36 pages I had.... yeah that was one of the things that contributed to the emotional breakdown) for my screenwriting class is due on the 10th.

Then graduation is on the 19th.

And then I'll have a Master's of Arts in Emerging Media and Communications from the University of Texas at Dallas.

Yeah... I know...

I'm terrible.

I'd like to claim that life has been really busy (which is not that far from the truth actually), but I've still managed to find the time to blog on Tumblr. So...

Y'all aren't mad at me about that, are you? You know I still love you. I do.

Please forgive me.

I'll be honest though, now that spring break is over and classes start up again and I only have about a month and a half left of the semester, I'm not sure how often I'll be back on here before the semester ends.

I shall try my best, but no promises. However, before I go away, I wanted to give you some highlights and updates in case you don't follow my Twitter/Tumblr and don't know what's going on in my life:

• Remember how I had posted about me being all cool and academic? This week I got to publish another post with In Media Res on the TV Show "Once Upon A Time." It can be found here: CLICK HERE
• This Thursday I'm going to the midnight showing of The Hunger Games and I'm so freakin' stoked to see this movie.
• This Saturday I have my presentation with my friend at a grad student symposium that I'm both equally nervous and excited for.
• This Sunday I may get a chance to meet the author of one of my all time favorite books as a child, The Phantom Tollbooth. This was the book that made me want to go into English and want to be a writer/editor. He's going to be at the Meyerson as the Dallas Symphony Orchestra performs the premiere pieces of two songs inspired by two of his books.
• If you didn't see on my various social networking sites, my whole family is going to ComicCon in July and I'm soooooooo excited for this you have no idea. AND the first day is ON MY BIRTHDAY. So it's a combined birthday and graduation gift to myself. :)
• My thesis is now a research blog, and I would love for you all to check it out and add it to your RSS feeds and comment on posts etc. (It's not very pretty at the moment and it only has one post so far cause I'm still working on it.) You can find it here: CLICK HERE
• I have now become a huge fan of Supernatural, more specifically Jensen Ackles, and I'm slowly but surely working my way through the seasons with my friends. (Although my mom wants me to hurry and finish cause she is now all caught up with the current season, 7th season mind you, and wants to talk about it. It took her about a month to get through them, and I'm in season 3. Yeah.)

And that's basically what's been going on in my life so far. I hope you guys are doing well and that you're not too angry that I've been slacking on this blog. I LOVE YOU.

Recap of the Week

Well I'm sad to report that nothing TOO dramatic happened (bahahahaha you know cause it's a drama class???) in my acting class this last Monday. We had some experimental performance artist come and present on her work which was... interesting. Then we only had time for 4 people in the class to present their own performance pieces because our professor kept talking and then making them change and redo stuff after each person. I felt so bad for one girl because she read a story she had written, which was beautiful and touching, but because she hadn't "performed" it and just read it, the professor made her redo parts of it and do it different ways over and over again. She is already a super quiet girl, and an undergrad no less (in a grad class), and she looked like she might burst into tears by the end of it.

The only thing that made me mad was that our professor held us over. I mean it's already a 3 hour class that gets out at 9:45 pm, so holding us till 10 and then telling us not to pack up when it's past time is kind of annoying. I didn't get to perform my piece, so now I get to re-memorize it, and hopefully I'll get to do it tomorrow. I'll let you know how that goes.

As for the rest of the week:

• My roommate and I bought a bunch of fancy cheese and it was delicious. CLICK HERE
• I finally watched The Walking Dead, and it is pretty much awesome. CLICK HERE
• I kind of love my screenwriting class (and lucky for me, those annoying people dropped the class, so there's only 11 of us now), and I love the idea I have for my script. I'm just hoping that I can execute it well.
• My family really likes to group text, which ends up being hilarious. CLICK HERE
• I did my first of three presentations to my professors on my thesis, and afterwards it turns out I'll be doing a blog instead of a huge paper, which I'm kind of more than okay with. I'll probably still have to write a paper, it just won't be 40 pages. :) Once I get the blog for it up and running, I'll let you know about it.
• Speaking of academic stuff, March is going to be crazy because I got accepted to curate another piece for the online journal In Media Res (like I did HERE only this time it's just me), and I'll be presenting my paper then too.
• Yesterday we celebrated my roommate's birthday and ate delicious sushi and saw The Woman in Black, which I thought was good and not as scary as you might think.
• I made some scones today, and they were delicious. CLICK HERE

And I did sort of not really pay attention to the Super Bowl or the commercials. I mean, I know who won (the Giants), and I saw some commercials... But, really I only ever watched the Super Bowl for the commercials anyway, and now that you can see most of the commercials before hand and afterwards on Hulu, I just don't even bother watching them as they air now.

That was pretty much my week. I will warn you now though, I've been slacking pretty badly on my thesis work, and so I may not update very much. I'm going to try really hard because I enjoy blogging as it kind of gives me a break, but no promises. I have a stack of about 30 books I need to go through, so I'm not going to have much of a life outside of that for a while. Wish me luck!

The Final Frontier

Like I do at the beginning of every semester, this is my analysis of the first day of my classes. This semester I have my capstone/thesis course/paper to work on (YAY!), and then I'm taking two other classes.

The first is a screenwriting class, which I had last week. The professor seems pretty cool, and it looks like we'll be watching a lot of film clips, which if you know me, you know I'm totally okay with. We'll also be reading full screenplays as well, and since I've never actually read a full screenplay I'm kind of excited for it. I can already tell that there are going to be a few people in there that are going to annoy me though.

For example, the professor said that we are going to be focusing on films (no TV shows) and have them in a 3-act style. He then asked if everyone was familiar with a 3-act play, and everyone pretty much nodded and a few people rose their hands. He called on one of the dudes who rose his hand, and the guy says, "Well, do you mean theatre or films?" (And PS I spelled it that way on purpose because that is how this dude is acting. Like a pompous know-it-all.) And the professor says, "Well, either." Then someone else says, "Umm doesn't it just mean it has a beginning, middle, and an end?" To which the professor says, "Yes." Do you mean theater or film? Seriously, dude? Get over yourself. But other than that, I'm excited to see what I come up with. I have a few vague ideas, which is apparently okay for the moment since we just have to come up with premises. I'll let you know what happens. I will say though, the professor did say, no vampires.... or zombies. So there goes those ideas! (KIDDING! Totally wasn't going to write about either of those.)

The other class is titled Creative Performances, and because I could not type fast enough what I wanted to tell you about the ridiculousness of this class, I recorded me talking about it. Yes, it is 10 minutes long, for which I only partly apologize. But seriously guys, the class was INSANE, you're really going to want to listen to all of it because it just gets better and better. I like can't even believe what happened. So much so... that it might become a regular weekly segment on the blog. Yes, it's that good. LISTEN TO IT:

Rant about my class by missnesbit

Then of course the Master's thesis, which if you want to hear about the fun starting on that CLICK HERE. It's going to be a great semester, full of writing, and hilarity, and if I can make it through to the end, I'll be DONE!!!!

Let's hope I can hold on. :)

Because This Is SUPER Important

I'm sure you probably have heard and/or noticed that several sites (including mine) are blacked out/shut down/have pop ups that tell you to contact your congressman to help stop the SOPA and PIPA bill. I can't express enough how devastating this will be if these bills pass as they are. Basically the Internet that we know and love will be censored and shut down. I don't want to go on a rant about copyright law, censorship, and piracy, so I will just stop now (cause y'all know how passionate I am about this issue).

If you are confused at all about what this means or why you should care, watch this video:


PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Help do your part by protecting your digital freedom of speech and the Internet and contact your congressman.

For more info and to tell your congressman CLICK HERE.

Look At Me Being All Academic

I helped write/curate a paper about America's Next Top Model for In Media Res, an online journal of sorts, and it got published today! See?

CLICK HERE

I'm like totes published/famous now. (Not really, but it makes me feel special and scholarly.)

I'm even thinking about submitting another piece soon (on my own) for this journal. If it gets accepted, don't worry, I'll totally let you know.

Not to mention, in March, I'll be presenting with a friend of mine a paper/project we did in our first semester of our program at a grad student symposium.

Look at me... I'm all academic and stuff.

And I get to be more so because my LAST semester starts next week. WOOT!

When I Wander Around Anthropologie

This is what I think about (it's on my Tumblr):

CLICK HERE

In other news, I only have a few more weeks till my last semester starts and instead of trying to get things ready (like I was supposed to have all break) for my thesis, like you know finding books and articles and get the groundwork laid out), I'm trying to watch as much TV as possible.

Nothing is left in my Hulu queue, I'm all caught up on Doctor Who, and US Being Human, and a couple other shows that I had postponed watching because of school. I guess I'm trying to make my break as fulfilling as I can.

If only I didn't have to go to work, then I'd have TONS of time to watch tons of shows.

HAPPY NEW YEAR'S!

My new year's this year wasn't all that exciting although I had multiple events I could have attended/did attend. I think what it was was that I didn't get to hang out with the people I really wanted to be with, although the people I did end up being with were lovely, so it was fine. But it wasn't as great as I was hoping, you know?

Oh well. There's always next year I suppose.

The point is that it is now 2012, and I have exciting things planned/coming up for this year. It's going to be awesome.

See, even the Doctor agrees and thinks you will have a great year too!

Because I'm So Excited-Part 2 AKA: My Family Is Awesome

I've already shared my excitement over what my friends got me for Christmas and now I can't wait to show off what I got from my family this year. Some I knew were coming, but some were a surprised, and some were fake (more on that later), but the real presents were great and Christmas was lovely.

Part 2: If my friends know me well, I'd say my family knows me even better.

 My parents got me a cover and this adorable decal for my new macbook air, which I bought after Thanksgiving. (Wait did I not tell you guys about that? Yeah... I bought a macbook air. Umm the end.) Yes, I asked for these things, but I still loved getting them anyway. :)

My family also bought me all of the series of Doctor Who with David Tennant as the Doctor (because remember I basically love him?) as well as last year's Doctor Who Christmas special with Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor. I had asked for these things, but what I had not asked for was Sherlock and I was so excited when I opened it. To which my mom said, "I got that at a discount because I was buying all those other things." Love it. My mom is great.

 Then my brother Cameron, who is also a huge Doctor Who fan and had been bugging me for the longest time to finally sit down and watch it, bought me this awesome mug in the shape of the Tardis as well as this awesome T-shirt:

For those unfamiliar, "Allons-y" is French for "let's go" and it's a phrase that the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) says all the time throughout the series.

I also got the Michael Buble Christmas CD from my little sister and some great jewelry and makeup from my Aunt, some PJs, and of course some gift cards and money from the grandparents, which is always greatly appreciated by me.

Oh yeah... the fake gifts. STORY TIME:
So, a few years ago I had bought a bunch of dishes that were on sale with the intention of using them when I moved out on my own. Well now that I am on my own, I had left the dishes mostly cause I forgot but also because my roommate already had tons of dishes and we kind of don't have a lot of room. Well my brothers thought it'd be hilarious to take those dishes and crappily wrap them and put them under the tree for me and say they were from random people like "Hobo Joe" or "Fate" or "Destiny" etc. It was mildly amusing, only I figured out what they had done before Christmas, and so my brother was very upset that I knew what they were. Well... at least he tried I guess.

Overall this Christmas was most unlike any other Christmas we've had, but it was still great. We didn't end up doing any of our normal traditions, which I'm usually adamant that we do, but this year I really didn't mind at all. Now that I'm no longer under the same roof with my family, I just mainly really enjoy being with them, and so that's what I liked the most about Christmas. We just hung out together, played games, watched The Nerdist, the Doctor Who Christmas special, and some other Christmas movies. I loved it.

So how about you guys? Did you guys have a good Christmas? Do anything exciting? Get anything that you want to show off?

Because I'm So Excited-Part 1 AKA: My Friends Are Awesome

I want to show off what I got for Christmas because I was so excited about what I got this year. It was perfect and while some weren't surprises at all, I absolutely loved them all the same.

Part 1:I'm going to show off what I got from my friends because basically they are awesome and know me so well and I was so excited by what they got me.

My friend Alison bought me some awesome makeup and since she's an expert on these sorts of things, I know what she got me will be perfect. I already can't stop using the Burt's Bees tinted lip balm she gave me. Seriously, that stuff is amazing.

My friend Rhia made me the most adorable mug cozy that is so Christmas-y I love it. I'm going to find excuses to drink hot chocolate all the time just so I can use it. (Not to mention the delicious goodies she put in the mug that are pretty much already gone.)

My roommate Aibi made me a jar, that is "My Stache" in which to put money to save to go to one of my favorite places of all time that I've wanted to go to for as long as I can remember. London. She put tons of London themed stickers and everything all over the jar:

 Not to mention that she even drew a TARDIS (the blue police box) on it too!!! I LOVE IT. Now I have to find money to put in it. She also got me nail polish and Bridesmaids on Bluray, which is also amazing.

My friend Erica, who has been aware of my increasing obsession over David Tennant and my growing love for all things Doctor Who, bought me a tea towel with the Tardis on it AND a DVD copy of Hamlet, played by David Tennant. There are no words for how much this gift completely took me by surprise and how much I loved it.

Unfortunately I couldn't take a picture of it (because sometimes my phone is retarded and I left my camera at my parents), I also got delicious candy, pen and planner, sexy red nail polish, and a freaking sweet tiger figurine (I wish I had a picture of the tiger because it is lovely) from my friends Anna and Marissa.

Seriously, all of the gifts from my friends were amazing and I absolutely loved them. I love how well my friends know me and know what I'd like. I have some pretty awesome friends, and I'm grateful they are in my life.

And if you think these gifts are great, wait till you see what I got from my family (Part 2)!

When I'm Rich, I, Too, Will Have A Custom-Made Christmas Statue

Every year my family goes to look at Christmas lights. We used to do it on Christmas Eve, but the places we normally went got so crowded and jam-packed that we have since moved our traditional Christmas light sight-seeing to an earlier weekend.

In recent years we started going into the fancy neighborhoods in Dallas to look at lights. You know... the houses where they hire people to put up lights instead of doing it themselves. While they are all very pretty to look at, there are two houses in particular that we try to find every year to look at.

The first one is HUGE and they have lights and animated things everywhere AND it plays music. They are conveniently located in a spot where you can drive/see around their entire house (mostly) so you can follow the drive around and still be looking at the same house. I wasn't able to take a video of it this year (and couldn't find the one my roommate took last year), but because youtube is awesome, I found a few videos other people took of this same house:



My second favorite house we almost couldn't find this year (we always forget the address every year), but I was determined to find it and we weren't allowed to leave the neighborhood until we did. AND luckily we turned the corner and there it was in all it's glory.

Unlike the previous house with all the lights and animated figures and music, this house has only one thing, but it's so great I love it. All it has is a giant custom-made statue that they put out every Christmas:

If you notice, every present has a name on it, for I'm assuming, every person in the family. I'm assuming those kids are also made to look similar to the kids in the family as well, but who knows. But, my favorite part of this statue, is the creepy butler dude chasing after Santa and the kids he's clearly kidnapped in his sleigh:

I mean I realize that he wants to make sure "Debbie" gets her gift, but what about all the other presents for everyone else lying on the ground not in the sleigh? I don't know I just get really happy every time I see this statue every year because it just cracks me up. That butler guy is seriously the greatest thing. When I'm really rich someday and can have a custom-made statue with all of my family members names on it that I only pull out during Christmas and the rest of the year store in my spare house, the creepy butler will have to be incorporated somehow.

Oh, and here's my brother showing his love for the statue as well:

The Annual Family Christmas Photo

Every year my mom thinks of this "great" thing for us to do for our yearly family photo to be included in the Christmas cards she sends out to everyone. Usually these photos consist of us being match-y in some way or another, and there is always hilarity that ensues when we try to take the photo.

A while back I remember we tried to take a photo of ourselves in front of our house. The resulting pictures were hilarious. In fact, I thought they were so funny I made a Facebook album of them complete with commentary. CLICK HERE if you want to see the album.

Well this year, we decided to take our own photo again (as opposed to last year when we had a professional take the pictures and they turned out fabulous) to save some money. My mom got us all hats that were made to look like different animals (don't worry, you'll see everyone else's in a minute).

Cameron modeling his hat.

Cameron trying to be serious in his koala hat.

Apparently, no one in my house owns an actual camera anymore (because we all just use our cell phones) except for me. Only, I forgot mine and I wasn't going to drive 15 minutes back to my apartment just to get the camera and come back and take one picture.

So my dad pulls out his ridiculously old digital camera. No really, it's old. It only goes up to 3 megapixels and the battery is so unique for it that they don't even sell that kind of battery anymore (we looked) and my dad couldn't find one in the house either.

However, my little sister has a camcorder that takes pictures, so we decide to use that. Only her camcorder is kind of cheap and doesn't really take the best pictures:

See? It's kind of a bluish tint. (Also, now you can see the other hats).

I should mention that all during this time we're trying to figure out the flash and the timer on my sister's camera and we're arguing about where people should stand etc. After we decide the bluish pictures are not going to be okay (ok so my mom decides this), I say that we just use one of our phones because it'll have a higher quality and it won't be blue. So I download an app that has a self-timer (the first one that was free) and just set my phone on the tripod and click the button and run back over to get in the picture.

This is our first... only my Dad's making a weird face.

Only after we stand there for a minute, we realize that we don't know when the phone takes the actual picture since none of us are staring at the screen (so we can't see the countdown) and there's no light that flashes on the opposite side to let us know. So we try it again:

You should know that Cameron ALWAYS makes some silly face in every single one of our family pictures. It bugs the crap out of my mom.

So then we decide to take a silly picture. You know, cause that's how my family is. We enjoy being funny. Only we're not quite sure when the timer goes off again, so we think we've waited long enough and so I go check and find out:

Yeah... hadn't waited long enough.

 So we try the silly picture one more time, only I wait to see the countdown start so I can count it in my head so we know we've waited long enough. And this is the final result:

Ahhh I just love it when my family tries to take pictures together. It's always an adventure.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, Y'ALL!!

A Weight Has Been Lifted... Sort of

On Thursday night I finished everything I had to for school, and once that happened, I seriously can't tell you how relieved I was. The week or two leading up to that point I had been stressed out of my mind. I had spent several nights in a row staying up till 4 in the morning trying to finish papers/projects/studying. (Although I'll admit, some of it was spent distracting myself on the Internet. I almost don't want to tell you, but I was trying to avoid working on a paper so much that I watched eleven, count it--ELEVEN, really crappy youtube lessons on how to fake a Scottish accent.*)

My plan once I finished the semester was to consume as much TV/movies as possible. I'm so behind on my shows because of school and have discovered a bunch of other shows and movies I want to watch but have been resisting because I didn't want to get obsessed and become more distracted from school (at least more so than I already was). I was so excited to be a total couch potato for a month before my last semester starts.

Yeah... I don't think it's going to work out how I planned.

I mean I have watched some shows, but I already have to get started on my master's capstone thesis. I also have to work on a group project because our paper proposal got accepted for this online journal called In Media Res, and it's due at the beginning of January. Not to mention there were some projects/videos that I started but wasn't able to finish (luckily my professor didn't care so much, so I didn't have to rush to finish them before the end of the semester, but I still feel I need to finish them since I started them already).

So.... looks like I won't be much of a couch potato during Christmas break.

Dang it.

*If you're curious I can kind of say "rural" and "loch," which I learned means lake which I think I knew already but for reason him saying it made more sense to me suddenly), and I have attempted to say "provocative" while rolling the "r" and it umm sounds far from provocative.

I Feel So Cool Cause I Did a Guest Blog Post

My friend the fabulous Jessica asked me to do a guest blog post on her awesome, nominated for some bloggie awards, amazing blog, and I was so honored that she asked me that I immediately said yes. Then spent the next week debating on what I would talk about.

I decided to go with my strong suite, movies, specifically the movie Mother. And if y'all know me like I think you do, you know how much I adore this movie.

You don't?

Well go check out my guest blog post on Thee Burgdorf Brunette!!

CLICK HERE

For those that are new to my blog, welcome. Feel free to poke around in the archives and look through the topics I mainly post about on the right. I've got some good ones there, I promise. :)

So Much For A Super Productive Thanksgiving Break

First off, I apologize for slacking on this blog. I do update my Tumblr more often because, I'll be honest, it's easier to do. But, I've even been slowing down a bit on that one as well. Why?

Well, I'm nearing the end of the semester, so I've had tons of final projects and papers that I have needed to do. In fact, the plan for this Thanksgiving break was to get tons of stuff done on these projects and papers.

Did I stick to this plan?

Yeah... no.

I'd like to blame my family, but let's be honest, one day I decided to go shopping instead of working on stuff, so it's my fault too. I'm kind of mad at myself about this, but I can't do anything about it now. It's already Saturday, and I really haven't done much. I've worked on a few things here and there, but nothing's really completed.

I wish I could extend the break longer, but when I think about it, I'd probably just waste my time on the longer break and not get anything done again. I just want to fast forward to December 9th because it means the semester will be over, I'll have finished everything, and I can have a break from school.

Gosh, where is The Doctor and his Tardis when you need 'em?!

With 10 minutes left to spare...

I thought I'd wish all you lovely, beautiful people a very happy Halloween.