brokenrecord

( Academy Awards Reactions )

omg it's so warm all of the sudden! It's wonderful! Last week it was getting warmer, but it was still cold enough that even though a bunch of snow and ice would melt during the day, as soon as the sun set, ice would cover the ground, making it very difficult to walk anywhere at night or in the early morning before it melted again. But now! Oh man, it was 48 degrees at 6:40 PM last night! Last year it got warm around this time, but it was only during spring break, and then it got cold again so I totally missed it. I am definitely enjoying it right now. I'm sure it will get cold again and even snow a few more times, but for now I'm just going to pretend that it will be this warm for the rest of the semester.

I finished North and South last night! I managed to finish what I needed to get done on my paper early, and I ended up reading it during all the commercials during the Oscars and the Red Carpet, so I managed to get through it. There were definitely parts I liked more in the book than the mini-series, but there were also several parts I liked much more in the mini-series than the book, and I think overall I liked the mini-series more, if only because I liked the proposal scene in the mini-series more, and the ending was so much more satisfying (the book ended rather abruptly, and when reading the book, you can't see Mr. Thornton smiling when he sees Margaret and throughout their entire discussion, and how he asks her if she's coming home with him, and it's just so lovely). There are a bunch of Dickens I want to read (namely, Little Dorrit, Bleak House, and Our Mutual Friend), but I think I want to wait at least a week to start any of them because part of the problem when reading North and South for me was that I was so familiar with what was going on from having watched it only a day or so before I started it that I found myself rushing through parts because there was another part I knew I wanted to get to, and I think my ultimate enjoyment suffered from that. So I think I'm going to either read Agnes Grey, Cecilia, or... something by Georgette Heyer (haven't decided what yet).

I've been dreading this week since like... the beginning of last week or so, when I realized how busy I would be, but it's actually not turning out too bad. I'm done with my paper except I still need an intro and conclusion (but those take very little time) and I need to do some editing, but we're doing a peer review of the midterms on Wednesday, so I have 2 days to finish it and make the changes I want. The hard part's done, in any case. And I also have that stupid evolution project podcast promo, but originally it was due Monday and it was pushed back until Thursday, so that's relieved a little of my stress, and I kind of have an idea for what I'm going to do for it. So tonight I'll figure out exactly what I want to say and tomorrow I'll record it and edit it, and theoretically I should be done with it by tomorrow night. And now only 4 days until Spring Break! I can't wait.

Today is Academy Awards Nominations Day! I adore the Academy Awards. I can't even explain why. A lot of the time they make stupid choices (well, in my opinion; film taste is, of course, subjective), and most of the time several of the films I consider best of the year get little or no attention. But, I don't know. It's just so much fun! I can't really describe it. I like award shows in general, but I greatly prefer movie award shows because for TV award shows, even fewer TV shows I love get any attention, and they nominate the same crap year after year and the same stuff wins and it's just horribly boring. But at least with movies, if there's something I hate, it's gone the next year. And for the past 3 years, the movie that won Best Picture at the Oscars I've really loved, even if it wasn't my favorite of the year (let's not mention 2005, which was one of the greatest movie award injustices in history, in my opinion).

Anyways, enough about that. Here are my opinions on the nominations, and what my ideal nominations would have been (for the 8 major categories: picture, director, the writing categories, and all the acting categories; despite taking a film class and looking online, I still don't know the difference between sound editing and sound mixing, I barely understand Art Direction, and I don't have much of an opinion about the other categories most of the time. Although I do enjoy score and cinematography typically. But I didn't feel like discussing them).

( Academy Awards Nominations Thoughts )

( Ideal Academy Awards Nominations )

(omg I spent way too much time in Dunn Brothers putting this together. At least there are some open tables so I don't feel like too much of a douche.)

I didn't mention in my last post because I had so many things to complain about, but hey, it's February! January always goes by so quickly. Probably because most of the month I don't have school. Anyways, in January I watched 261 episodes of TV (which is crazy because that's way more than I usually watch in a month, 30 more than last January, and I'm like 1 1/2-2 weeks behind on TV due to not having internet), 11 movies (more than I expected considering I only watched 2 from 01/01-01/14), and read 2 books (! crazy! I don't know if I said this before, but my goal this year is to read at least one book a month. I hope to actually read more than 12 books in the whole year, but I tend to go in phases where I'll read like 7 books in a few weeks and then nothing the rest of the year, so reading at least one book a month should actually boost the number of books I read all year. Actually, I already finished one book in February, and I'll probably get to a few more what with the stupid internet not working for another few days, so that's good. I love reading, but it's too hard to work in while I have classes because even if I have time to read, I get too sucked in to whatever I'm reading and then neglect everything else so I can finish the book, and it's just easier not to read anything).

Not being able to watch the most recent episode of Chuck is physically hurting me. Okay, not really, but it does suck. Most stuff I can deal with having to wait 1-2 weeks to watch, but not Chuck. The same is true for Greek, actually, but it just came back so I'm more used to it not being around and so it doesn't seem as tragic that I haven't seen the last episode. Also, the fact that I'm going to miss the Lost premiere sucks. Although I suppose it's easier to delay watching that when I've already been waiting months and months than to delay watching something I'm used to seeing every week. I really hope I don't get spoiled for Lost, though. =/ I suppose the fact that I'm being more productive than normal (especially at this point in the term) doesn't suck. It is weird though. And I don't have enough work to take up my whole night, so I still end up with time left over with nothing to do.

Ok, time to go back to my apartment since I've been in here for like an hour and a half now.

ugh so I was supposed to meet with Li to work on our stats project research proposal that's due Friday at 1 PM yesterday, but at noon she calls me and is like "Can we postpone? I just woke up and my friend called me and he's visiting and I have to show him around campus but he'll leave in the afternoon. Could we meet at like 8?" And I didn't really want to meet at 8 because that kind of ruins my night, but whatever, I wanted to get as much done for this as possible since I also have a project in Differential Equations due Thursday and a German test on Friday, so I said sure. Anyway, fastforward to 8 PM, and she doesn't show up. At 9 I finally call her and her phone is off. I really don't like group projects. =/ I just don't understand why people can't be responsible. I don't feel like it's too much to ask to show up when you say you're going to. Or if you can't show up, call me and let me know so I don't just sit around waiting for an hour when I have other things I'd rather be doing.

On a slightly happier note, the Academy Awards are next Sunday! I'm very excited. I know everyone complains about them and hates how long they are and all the montages and don't think they have any value and all that, but... I don't care. I love them anyway. I just have a thing for award shows, but movie award shows most of all (even though I tend to like TV more than movies, I don't like TV award shows because the same things get awards every year and the shows that I love the most that I feel deserve nominations the most never get them. And at least with movies, if there's a movie you hate that's getting a lot of awards, it's only for one year; TV shows you hate can get nominated and win year after year, and it just gets really old). And the Academy Awards are like the pinacle of movie award shows. And yeah, most of the time their picks aren't the absolute best of the year. But most of the time I still really like most of the nominations. And whatever, it's fun. And I never understand other people's complaints because I like how long it is. Actually, each time it ends, I'm like "Oh man, now it's another whole year before the next one!" I'd almost like if they were longer. And I absolutely love the movie montages. It's fun how every year I recognize more and more of the movies in them.

Anyway, even though this week is going to be rather hellish and I'd really love it if it were Friday already, I'm probably not going to do anything to make it less hellish today. I already watched Touch of Evil earlier, and I think I'm going to watch The Apartment tonight after dinner. I have a meeting with my group in Differential Equations to work on the project (I better not be stuck with the entire write-up this time like last semester in Multivariable Calc. My group is exactly the same as last semester, though, except there's one extra guy), but that's not until 8, so I should have time to watch it before then. I guess so I feel a little less guilty about that I'll try to get some work done now before dinner. sigh. Why is it that now that I'm getting back into watching as many movies as possible, I have no time to do it? I had so much time in January, but I wasn't nearly as interested even though I was getting really bored there at the end of the month. Oh well.

ugh. ( Concert Dilemma! )

Is it weird that for the Academy Awards, the category that there's a nominee that absolutely has to win or I will be devastated is Best Original Song? Seriously, if Falling Slowly doesn't win, I don't know what I'll do. That song made me want to watch Once, and it's just so beautiful. It has such relevance to the movie and the plot, and I just love it. Plus, I find it awesome that Glen Hansard and Market Irglova wrote it.

Anyways, I'm so ridiculously excited for the Academy Awards this year. They're actually the reason I most wanted the strike to be over soon, since I had already resigned myself to the fact that this TV season was over. But Jon Stewart is hosting, Falling Slowly will be performed, and I've seen 4 out of the 5 nominated movies for best picture. Do you know how often that happens for me? NEVER. Not even AFTER the awards. I think the most I've seen for any one year is 4 (for 2005), but 2 of them I didn't see until after the awards. Same for last year, I saw 3, but only 2 before the awards. And I'm planning on seeing Michael Clayton this weekend, so if that happens, then I'll have seen all 5 before the actual awards! I haven't even seen 5 of any year after the awards! And I love awards shows, so this just makes it way more fun that I've actually seen the movies.

Jon Stewart is hosting the Academy Awards this year! Guess I'll be watching them, then. Although I probably would anyways, especially if Brokeback Mountain gets any noms. Still, this is excellent.

So, I went to the animal shelter today and then afterwards headed down to the spectrum and bought 2 books. Any guesses what they were? I blew my last $30 on the two Bridget Jones books. I really hope I like them (though I can't imagine that I wouldn't). I wish I had my Barnes and Noble card I got for Christmas with me, because... duh. $100! Oh well. I need to start saving money again.

Didn't end up doing anything with Emma and Mukul since I knew my mom would kill me if I didn't go to the animal shelter and I would go early afternoon and Emma could only do stuff till 5 or 6. So, I think we're going to do stuff on Saturday, now, after All Southern auditions.

Anyways. Since I have a bunch of new friends (and also some old friends that I barely know at all), I decided to do a little get to know you meme/survey thing that I've seen other people do. So, please fill this out:
Name:
Age:
Birthday:
Location:
Fandoms:
Ships:
Music:
Anything else?:

( My answers )