brokenrecord

Ok, so now for stuff not related to Harry Potter. (Ok, mostly.)

I got my Macalester e-mail and found out my first year course. Unfortunately I got my third choice FYC, The History and Evolution of the Earth. It's kind of more my fourth choice just because my fourth was Intro to Psych and only reason I put it fourth was because I wanted the other section of it more that wasn't a FYC. I don't know, the class sounds interesting, and it's a residential course like I wanted, but... it's geology. And the professor is my advisor and I don't really have a great interest in the field. I really, really wanted that film analysis class. sigh. And the history class I put for second would be fine too, because history is actually something I would major in. Oh well. I hope the rest of my schedule is more what I wanted. If I didn't get into that intro to psych class I'm going to be really upset.

On a happier note, I got my Macbook on Thursday! I love it so far. It's been hardest to adjust to the smaller text sizes, but I think I'm ok with it now. And it always sucks to find out that programs I took for granted before only work with Windows and not Mac. I obviously had heard that before, but I didn't realize how many it was really true of. I bought Paintshop Pro for $70ish just 6 months ago, and it doesn't work on Macs! gah. So my choices are to either buy Photoshop for $700 or buy Parallels (and I guess I would have to buy Windows XP as well?) for $80. Yeah, pretty obvious which route I'm going to go. Besides, Parallels will be useful for a lot more than using PSP, so I think it'll be worth it.

The one HP-related thing, I did finish all 6 books by Friday night. It was a good thing I reread the sixth book, because I forgot everything that happened in it, except I guess the stuff that I was spoiled for before I read it, which would be the Snape stuff and all the relationship stuff. But I forgot about Scrimgeour and Slughorn and even the Horcruxes. Seriously. And some stuff like that I would read and be like "Oh, yeah, I remember that," but there was plenty of stuff I would read and wouldn't remember at all. It was kind of cool, like reading it for the first time again.

I saw that the first two episodes of Dexter season 2 have leaked online, and I'm trying to resist. I guess it's easier for me than those who watched it when it aired since I only finished season 1 a few weeks ago. I probably wouldn't be resisting if I had been waiting for months for the new season. But yeah, I think I'll leave it until it airs. And Dexter reminds me of the Emmy nominations, in which I'm slightly happy about some of them (Jenna Fischer! I wasn't expecting her to get nominated, and I'm so happy she did. She really deserves it), but that's mostly overshadowed by the fact that Friday Night Lights and Dexter got no major nominations. I was sure that if they both wouldn't be nominated, at least one would be for something. I mean, I watch House and Heroes (I can't comment on other shows nominated instead like Boston Legal and Grey's Anatomy because I don't watch them), and I enjoy them, but no way are either of them better than FNL or Dexter in just about any respect. Hugh Laurie, maybe, but the show as a whole, not so much. And I love Masi Oka and Hiro to bits, but I don't really feel he deserves his nom. Oh well. It's not like I expected to be thrilled with all the nominations.

Um, what else? I've watched a couple of leaked pilots so far (Reaper, Chuck, and Pushing Daisies), but I think I'll comment on them in a separate post later. Or I'll get lazy and forget. Haven't really been doing much today. It's like I have no idea what to do now that I'm done with Harry Potter. I'll have to figure something else out.

Went to the midnight showing of Harry Potter on Tuesday with a bunch of friends which was a lot of fun. And I really liked the movie. When I first came out I was just like "Well, that was better than I thought it would be" but the more I think about it, the more I really loved it. It's my favorite so far of the movies (well I've only seen the second half of Chamber of Secrets. And I totally hate Prisoner of Azkaban which I think is a very unpopular opinion but I love the book so much and I don't think anything could have lived up to what I hoped for it to be like. I think maybe if I rewatch it I would like it better. But at this point the 5th is totally my favorite). Of course they had to cut out a bunch of stuff, but that's to be expected, and once you get past that I think they did a good job of capturing the tone of the book. And it's just shot so beautifully. The cinematography is excellent.

I've been starting my reread of the series and something jumped out of me. ( Spoilers only for the first book. )

Anyways, I've been spending a lot more being social this week than I have since graduation. There was the Harry Potter thing and then Wednesday there was a small party-ish gathering thing in the band room for Mrs. Bentley's resignation which was nice and on Sunday I'm going to dinner with some friends and then we're going to watch Taming of the Shrew for this Shakespeare in the Park thing. So that'll be fun.

I ordered a Macbook (my graduation present) yesterday! I'm excited for it to come. I've never had a Mac before so I'm hoping I'll get used to it and like it and such. Hopefully it won't break down as frequently as my past few computers have (although those were all Dells and I've heard Dells are the worst).

Less happy and exciting, I'm getting a TB test on Thursday since it's required for college. If you don't know, I absolutely hate going to the doctor and needles. I'm so terrified of needles, and I swear I must have a much lower tolerance for pain than everyone else on the planet because I just cannot handle shots and blood tests and such. Everyone always says it won't be as bad as I think, but then it always is (or it's worse). I at least feel better that I have an appointment set and I won't just be worrying knowing I need to make an appointment before August 1st, but having no idea when it will be.

!!! My computer came today! I don't know what the order status thing was going on about, because Wednesday is a lot sooner than Friday. wheee I'm so happy now! :D

Today's just been a good day all round. In chem we got our tests back we took before winter break and I thought I had done really poorly and I ended up getting a 53/54, which will bring up my grade 1% and I'm now at an 89.4 which is so freaking close to an A. And in French, which is usually an awful class, we spent like the whole period listening to this French song that sounded like 'NSYNC or the Backstreet Boys (and it was totally written in the 90s) and it was kind of awesome.

Anyways, I suppose I should go start downloading everything I need onto this computer. Oh, but first! I meant to post on New Year's Day all the movies I watched and books I read in 2006, but what with the lack of computer and my mother's computer sucking, that didn't really happen. So, here it is now. The movies have short reviews and a rating out of 10, while the books just have stars out of 5.

( Movies in 2006 )

( Books in 2006 )

So, good news: I finally know when I'm getting my computer! It's supposed to come anywhere from Monday to Wednesday this coming week. So, I shouldn't be without it much longer! Unfortunately, I'm getting it right as I should be starting to review for finals, since I'm borderline in like all my classes except for band and French. Oh well. I'll still be very happy to have it back.

Just got back from Mammoth today. The skiing was all right. It was snowing pretty heavily the 3rd day we were there so we couldn't ski that day very much, and I wasn't skiing very well throughout the time. But it still ended up being fun. There was a DVD player in the room and I brought season 1 of Veronica Mars and finally got my parents to watch it with me, and both of them really loved it. They probably won't have a chance to watch season 2 anytime soon, but that's all right. They'll get to it eventually. It was so fun to watch season 1 again. I don't think I've watched it since I got it on DVD, right at the start of the second season.

I guess that's it. I really can't wait until I get my computer.

Thanks to everyone who replied to my last post. I was most upset about Derek from when I found out he had stopped eating to right after he died, but after that I was better. Probably because he's been sick for like a year or two and he's never been in the best health and I've been expecting him to die for just as long. So now that he is, I can kind of accept it and move on.

It's really sad, though, one of my birds, Jason, he's really unsettled by Derek's death. Like, they were never friends, but they didn't hate each other either (they were just sort of acquaintances), but we got Jason after Derek, so as long as Jason's been here, Derek has. So I think it kind of freaks him out that he's all of a sudden not here. And for some reason he blames my dad. It's so bizarre. Whenever he comes home, Jason starts attacking him and won't go anywhere near him. He's a very confused little bird.

Computer is not in yet, so I still have to use my mom's to go on-line. It's not too difficult to update, but checking my friendslist would take hours, and since it's dial-up I don't really want to spend hours on it because it'll tie up the phone line, so I can update from time to time, but I won't be able to check my flist until I get the new computer. And so now I'm incredibly bored what with school finally being out and all. Today I went to blockbuster and rented Reefer Madness, Little Miss Sunshine, and the first Bridget Jones (even though I'd already seen it since I bought the 2nd for like $5 over the summer and haven't watched it yet (I mean, I'd seen it before I bought it, but I haven't seen the one I bought) since I felt like watching the second but didn't have the first, and I've never seen the first followed by the second before). I watched Reefer Madness and Little Miss Sunshine today, and Reefer Madness was good and Little Miss Sunshine was excellent.

Tomorrow I'll watch both Bridget Jones, possibly go and by myself new jeans since the ones I have now are getting holes everywhere, and possibly start some of my winter assignments (ugh, I have winter assignments in every class but calculus).

So, last night my computer started to smell like it was burning, and then it shut itself off. I managed to get back on and send myself some files that I didn't want to be lost forever, and then it shut itself off again and I didn't want to risk trying to turn it on again. Great timing for this to happen. So yeah, I'm not going to be around much for the next week or so (no idea how long it'll take for us to get it fixed, or if we'll even be able to get it fixed) and I can go on my mom's computer (which is what I'm using right now) but it's dial-up and I hate it and so I won't be able to go on it much. sigh. See you all when I have a working computer!