Quasimodo

Adventure

I love adventures. Yesterday, I had an awesome adventure with SJ and some other girls in NYC. First, we went to this random building that hosts many different architecture and design firms. They were having a charity fund raiser there where you had to donate a can of food in order to enter. Once inside, the offices in the various floors had sculptures made almost solely out of food cans. It was a contest and each firm had a sculpture which they'd had a day to make a week earlier. It was incredible. There were polar bears, Kermit the Frog, race cars, ice cream cones, DNA strands, and, most impressive of all, the Mona Lisa - all made out of cans. Each sculpture had a punny name like deCANstruction or other things like that which I cannot remember now.

At night, we went to see the movie Enchanted.

It was incredible.

It made us all feel so happy, I think. It's just that sort of movie. You walk out of there wearing a big smile. The story proves that there can be a happily ever after in the real world, even if life and love and everything aren't perfect - because in the real world, it can never really be perfect (as opposed to Andalasia where...well, I won't give anything away) but still, that doesn't mean people can't have fairy tale endings. It just isn't as simple as in real fairy tales, that's all. Anyway, it made me happy. Here's the preview, which is fun, too:



Anyway, happy Turkey Day, everyone!

Invasion of the Borrowers

The Borrowers are real. I know they're real because I'm missing quite a number of small items and important pieces of paper that I know I packed from my dorm room before I came home and I remember taking special note that they were there. And my dorm room was completely empty when I left it. It was as small as a closet (think Harry Potter and his cupboard under the stairs - yep, that was my dorm room) so it's not like there were many places these things could have disappeared to. No, the disappearing definitely happened once I got home. And so the Borrowers must be real. They have to be. There's no other explanation.

In other news, I saw an incredible movie last night called Freedom Writers. It's based on a true story after the LA riots where high school kids from an interracial school in Long Beach, California learn to cope with their lives and the struggles of gangs, broken homes, and racial wars through keeping journals. The project was started by their English teacher, Erin Gruwell, who joined the school in order to make a difference in the interracial community. She reached out and helped these kids realize their potential through exposing them to others who had similar struggles. She had her students read The Diary of Anne Frank and taught them about the Holocaust. The kids eventually referred to themselves as the Freedom Writers, a take-off of the previous segregation fighers, the Freedom Riders. They compiled their journals together and it was eventually published.

Freedom Writers is an extremely moving film and definitely a must see. I found it extremely interesting that there was so much focus on the Holocaust, as well. I even almost cried at certain points and I hate crying during movies (even though it, er, isn't that difficult to do. For me, I mean. So embarassing). I really, really want to read the book now.

"You Keep On Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means"

This post has nothing to do with words. I just want to make that clear, since the title has everything to do with words. But really I just like the title. And if I could write a post right now about words, I would.

Oh, what the heck. I'll write about words.

Words fascinate me. This is the alphabet: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ. That's it. That's the whole thing. And out of those twenty-six letters, words, sentences, paragraphs, pages, chapters, stories, novels, whole tomes are written! Out of just twenty-six letters! Amazing. We can take twenty-six little symbols and use them to express ourselves for the rest of our lives, to make up our whole extensive vocabulary. To write science books, philosophy books, historical novels, fantasy, action, adventure, spy novels, biology textbooks, psychology books, movie scripts, plays, poetry, letters, essays, arguments, articles, pamphlets, laws, governmental documents, birthday cards...you name it. Incredible.

And now, for the subject I intended to write about when I started this post. Movies. I was thinking about the sort of movies I like and the sort I don't like. I used to not be very picky, just so long as it was appropriate and not gory or too violent. Now, though, I've become almost afraid of drama. I can't watch it. Sap makes me squirm, too much drama makes me squirm, everything that is serious and not light and funny makes me squirm. Why is that? I don't know, am I so insensitive? Am I too sensitive? It's weird. I recently realized that I don't like watching movies that make me feel sad, depressed, or serious afterwards. It isn't like I don't enjoy being in a contemplative mood, because believe me, I do (would I keep a blog if I didn't?), but when it comes to entertainment - I like to be entertained. To me, being entertained means being put in a good mood, it means feeling happy, enjoying life, that sort of thing. I just don't get that from serious movies. And as amazing as some serious movies are, I can't bring myself to want to watch them.

But then I ask myself, am I so shallow that I only like movies that are funny? It got to the point where, I used to hate chick flicks because I thought they were stupid, now I kind of like them (if they're not too dumb) because at least they're light and fun and don't make me feel serious afterwards. I don't know why I shy so much away from feeling serious. Maybe it's because I'm afraid to let my guard down and actually feel because I might be vulnerable like that - but that's odd. I don't strike myself as a hard, guarded person. Maybe I just think that, if I have the choice, I choose to feel happy rather than depressed or serious.

But I'm not a shallow person. I'm really not! And I do think there's a time to be serious, just like there is a time for everything else. I guess I just think that, if life can't always be that way, at least in the fictional world, people should live happily ever after, with a bunch of sarcastic, cynical, and goofy jokes on the side (so it's not too sappy).