On Monday, I woke up early to go to campus, because on Friday I had left my flash drive in a computer classroom. I realized I had left it there an hour later, and when I went back, the room was locked. I was sure that it would still be there on Monday morning, before classes started--but it wasn't! I made frantic searches to various rooms in the JKB, and when none of them turned it up, I went over to the Wilk. They didn't have it either. I asked my professor that afternoon if she had seen it. She hadn't, but she suggested I ask the writing center. They didn't have it either, but they took my email in case they did.
The next day, I got the long-awaited email saying they had found it. That flash drive had a lot of homework, a lot of work files, and other files I intend to use again. I guess I could have used cloud storage, but a flash drive is more convenient for me--as long as I don't lose it. It's amazing how so much important stuff depends on that little piece of plastic and metal!
That's the world we live in. Technology is both a blessing and a curse.
Last week I got a smart phone, and this week I have been trying to get used to it. I had had my previous phone for four years. I had no problem with it, except that it didn't always charge right. Often when I charged it, it would end up with less battery than when I started. I couldn't leave it charging overnight, because invariably my phone would be dead in the morning, even though it was plugged in. So it was time for a new one. But I get a little sad thinking about that one. It was the first cellphone I ever had! I got it right after I got back from my mission, and it has served me for the past four years. I still use it as my alarm clock because I can't say goodbye.
I'm not sure what to think of my new phone. It is nice to be able to check my email or pull in people's church records without going to a computer. But there are a few things that annoy me about it. It is harder to check my texts. It is harder to text, because the keyboard is wider. I have to charge it a lot more--and considering that charging was the main problem with my old one, I'm not sure the new one's necessarily an improvement. I know I'll get used to it--but I still have to get used to it. New technological advances may be advances in some ways, but they're not better in all ways.
On Monday night, we had an FHE in which we played MarioKart on the N64. I never had an N64 growing up. It came out when I was in second grade, and I wanted one really badly. My brother says that he told me that it was hard, and then I didn't want one anymore. But I never really played one. I've played MarioKart on the Wii at my brother's house, and wasn't very good. I was even worse on the 64. I lost every time. People could tell which one was me because I was the last one.
And then the next day someone asked me if I'm a gamer. The answer, of course, is no. He said I seemed like a gamer. But I wondered why he thought that. Do I really still seem that nerdy? I am pretty quiet, which I guess is a little nerdy in its own right, and because I'm quiet people don't get to know me very well. But I was wearing my most fashionable pants and shoes that day! Maybe it's my long-ish hair. But I don't like talking about that.
This week I had to study for a groundwater test. I set up a Google doc so we could study together as a class. I did pretty well on the last test, so I wasn't too worried about this one.
I have never felt so terrible about a test. I don't know my score, but I'm pretty sure I failed. I've never failed a test before, unless you count the AP tests on which I only got 2s. I had memorized a bunch of equations and variables, but when I got to the test, I didn't know what to do with them. It was awful. For me, a C or a D is failing, but I'm pretty sure that this will be a genuine F. I even wrote that on the front. I left so much blank. For some reason, what bothers me most about doing so poorly is wondering what the professor will think of me. Early in the semester, he wondered if another girl was really going to be taking the class, since she wasn't a geology major. I'm not a geology major either, so what does he think of me? Hopefully I'll be able to salvage my grade, but it's pretty unlikely I'll get a 4.0 this semester (which I only did once during a full semester).
But I don't have to think about groundwater until after Thanksgiving. Or swimming, either. But I like my swimming class. That's one class I'll be sad to have end. That and my capstone corpus linguistics class. I was expecting that a class called "The Senior Course" would be difficult--but it was actually my easiest (except for swimming for non-swimmers).
I'm thankful for Thanksgiving!
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Thanksgiving thoughts
I love this time of year. There's just something about November that fills me with such joy.
When I think about November, I think of dark evenings in elementary school, in which my brother is listening to music on our computer, our felt newspaper-filled turkey is sitting somewhere in the living room, and our cornucopia decoration is filled with fake vegetables of some kind.
In November, all the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray, but it's not quite yet a winter's day. Even if it snows, you know there's still a good chance of decently warm days returning, if that's what you like. And if you like snowy days, then you know on sunny days that it could soon snow again.
There's a certain brisk bareness all around. Most of the trees have lost most (but not all) of their leaves, but they usually aren't covered with snow. Halloween decorations are gone, but Christmas decorations aren't (usually) up yet. There's just this crisp clearness and cleanness to the time.
I can't decide whether I like Thanksgiving because I like November, or whether I like November because I like Thanksgiving. But I adore them both.
While some people are listening to Christmas music at this time (and thereby diluting the merry emotions associated with such music), I listen to Thanksgiving music. It fills me with such joy to listen to it. Many people are skeptical of Thanksgiving music existing, but by the end of the week, my Thanksgiving playlist should have 67 songs:
Mormon Tabernacle Choir: I just ordered a CD this week entitled The Great Thanksgiving, which hasn't yet arrived yet but has 21 songs. I think it's an older recording, which tend not to be as good, but hopefully it will at least have music you can hear (unlike many of their newer recordings). I also have three Thanksgiving songs sung in general conference, and their "For the Beauty of the Earth" from their Consider the Lilies album.
Craig Duncan: I don't know who this is, except that I bought his Thanksgiving album, We Gather Together: 14 Thanksgiving Hymns. It seems to be instrumental folk. (I think folk is the best genre of music. I attended a concert of the BYU folk ensemble this week, and of all the BYU concerts I've attended, the folk ones are hands down the best. Folk is great because it's versatile. There's rock folk, pop folk, country folk, traditional folk, and so on. I like almost all of it.) This album seems to be easy-listening folk, which isn't my favorite, but Thanksgiving music is hard to come by. Since this is new to me, it doesn't have all the strong Thanksgiving emotions attached yet, but I hope that in future it will.
A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving: I have watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving every year since 1999, so it is strongly associated with Thanksgiving in my mind. I always thought a soundtrack of it would be nice. Although an official soundtrack has never been made, a few years ago they found some of Vince Guaraldi's original recordings and have released them on various CDs, so I have been able to find all but two of the songs from the TV special. I have ten songs, although two of them are repeats from different CDs. I also have a cover of the "Little Birdie" song (which isn't a Thanksgiving song itself, but because it's on the Thanksgiving special, I count it).
Hymns 91-95: I have those abysmal recordings from lds.org (both vocal and instrumental), but hey, it's free Thanksgiving music. I also have three other recordings of "For the Beauty of the Earth"--one by an annoying a cappella group Eclipse and two by the Lower Lights (one album version and one live version).
Other songs: I also have a few other songs--a cheesy song called "Thanksgiving Day" by a BYUI instructor named Kory Kunz, an introductory piano piece called "Sliced Turkey," and that ridiculous but culturally amusing "It's Thanksgiving" song from last year.
Now, as you can see, the quality of my Thanksgiving music may not be the best. But I'll tolerate a little lack of quality for the sake of powerful Thanksgiving emotions. (Besides, it's still better than a lot of Christmas music!)
And if you think this is a lot, I still know of more music I could add to my Thanksgiving playlist, but I've added enough for this year. (I need to start budgeting my money better. Today is day one.) But there will be no Adam Sandler or "Alice's Restaurant" for me--too inappropriate.
This year I learned that most historians who have done their research don't believe that the Pilgrims actually wore buckles as we see in pictures. It sounds like they haven't found any buckle artifacts, and it sounds like buckles weren't popular until later. But it sounds like they existed, so they could have worn them but probably didn't. But buckles have become such an iconic image of Thanksgiving. A 5k description for Thanksgiving Point describes the race clothes as "An iconic (and historically inaccurate) giant buckle hat or bonnet and a long-sleeved, cotton tee styled to look like a jacket or dress." It seems that if you're going for a historically accurate Pilgrim, you should leave off the buckle, but if you're going for a Thanksgiving Pilgrim, by golly, you'd better include that buckle!
I don't think that the lack of existence precludes something from being a holiday symbol. I don't think that cornucopias ever existed. Any cornucopias that exist, exist only because of the symbol, not the other way around.
(But eight-pointed snowflakes? Eww.)
But I think that sometimes historians want to say things simply to shock or make themselves appear smart. There are some historians who say there was no turkey at the first Thanksgiving. Umm, were they there? William Bradford himself says they had turkeys. I'm going to trust someone who was there, instead of some untrustworthy historian. If you said turkey was not the main dish, that would most likely be correct--but to say there was no turkey is idiotic.
Besides, turkeys are a New-World resource that the Pilgrims would have encountered, just like pumpkins and maize.
I am so excited for Thanksgiving next week. I hope to finish most of my homework before Thanksgiving so that I can just relax for those few days.
When I think about November, I think of dark evenings in elementary school, in which my brother is listening to music on our computer, our felt newspaper-filled turkey is sitting somewhere in the living room, and our cornucopia decoration is filled with fake vegetables of some kind.
In November, all the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray, but it's not quite yet a winter's day. Even if it snows, you know there's still a good chance of decently warm days returning, if that's what you like. And if you like snowy days, then you know on sunny days that it could soon snow again.
There's a certain brisk bareness all around. Most of the trees have lost most (but not all) of their leaves, but they usually aren't covered with snow. Halloween decorations are gone, but Christmas decorations aren't (usually) up yet. There's just this crisp clearness and cleanness to the time.
I can't decide whether I like Thanksgiving because I like November, or whether I like November because I like Thanksgiving. But I adore them both.
While some people are listening to Christmas music at this time (and thereby diluting the merry emotions associated with such music), I listen to Thanksgiving music. It fills me with such joy to listen to it. Many people are skeptical of Thanksgiving music existing, but by the end of the week, my Thanksgiving playlist should have 67 songs:
Mormon Tabernacle Choir: I just ordered a CD this week entitled The Great Thanksgiving, which hasn't yet arrived yet but has 21 songs. I think it's an older recording, which tend not to be as good, but hopefully it will at least have music you can hear (unlike many of their newer recordings). I also have three Thanksgiving songs sung in general conference, and their "For the Beauty of the Earth" from their Consider the Lilies album.
Craig Duncan: I don't know who this is, except that I bought his Thanksgiving album, We Gather Together: 14 Thanksgiving Hymns. It seems to be instrumental folk. (I think folk is the best genre of music. I attended a concert of the BYU folk ensemble this week, and of all the BYU concerts I've attended, the folk ones are hands down the best. Folk is great because it's versatile. There's rock folk, pop folk, country folk, traditional folk, and so on. I like almost all of it.) This album seems to be easy-listening folk, which isn't my favorite, but Thanksgiving music is hard to come by. Since this is new to me, it doesn't have all the strong Thanksgiving emotions attached yet, but I hope that in future it will.
A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving: I have watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving every year since 1999, so it is strongly associated with Thanksgiving in my mind. I always thought a soundtrack of it would be nice. Although an official soundtrack has never been made, a few years ago they found some of Vince Guaraldi's original recordings and have released them on various CDs, so I have been able to find all but two of the songs from the TV special. I have ten songs, although two of them are repeats from different CDs. I also have a cover of the "Little Birdie" song (which isn't a Thanksgiving song itself, but because it's on the Thanksgiving special, I count it).
Hymns 91-95: I have those abysmal recordings from lds.org (both vocal and instrumental), but hey, it's free Thanksgiving music. I also have three other recordings of "For the Beauty of the Earth"--one by an annoying a cappella group Eclipse and two by the Lower Lights (one album version and one live version).
Other songs: I also have a few other songs--a cheesy song called "Thanksgiving Day" by a BYUI instructor named Kory Kunz, an introductory piano piece called "Sliced Turkey," and that ridiculous but culturally amusing "It's Thanksgiving" song from last year.
Now, as you can see, the quality of my Thanksgiving music may not be the best. But I'll tolerate a little lack of quality for the sake of powerful Thanksgiving emotions. (Besides, it's still better than a lot of Christmas music!)
And if you think this is a lot, I still know of more music I could add to my Thanksgiving playlist, but I've added enough for this year. (I need to start budgeting my money better. Today is day one.) But there will be no Adam Sandler or "Alice's Restaurant" for me--too inappropriate.
This year I learned that most historians who have done their research don't believe that the Pilgrims actually wore buckles as we see in pictures. It sounds like they haven't found any buckle artifacts, and it sounds like buckles weren't popular until later. But it sounds like they existed, so they could have worn them but probably didn't. But buckles have become such an iconic image of Thanksgiving. A 5k description for Thanksgiving Point describes the race clothes as "An iconic (and historically inaccurate) giant buckle hat or bonnet and a long-sleeved, cotton tee styled to look like a jacket or dress." It seems that if you're going for a historically accurate Pilgrim, you should leave off the buckle, but if you're going for a Thanksgiving Pilgrim, by golly, you'd better include that buckle!
I don't think that the lack of existence precludes something from being a holiday symbol. I don't think that cornucopias ever existed. Any cornucopias that exist, exist only because of the symbol, not the other way around.
(But eight-pointed snowflakes? Eww.)
But I think that sometimes historians want to say things simply to shock or make themselves appear smart. There are some historians who say there was no turkey at the first Thanksgiving. Umm, were they there? William Bradford himself says they had turkeys. I'm going to trust someone who was there, instead of some untrustworthy historian. If you said turkey was not the main dish, that would most likely be correct--but to say there was no turkey is idiotic.
Besides, turkeys are a New-World resource that the Pilgrims would have encountered, just like pumpkins and maize.
I am so excited for Thanksgiving next week. I hope to finish most of my homework before Thanksgiving so that I can just relax for those few days.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
No-Rest November
I'm sure glad I had geology 210 this semester and already have three credits out of the way, because I don't know if I would have been able to manage. This was a rather hectic week. My average time spent on campus per day this week was ten or eleven hours.
One of my big assignments was a lab writeup for my groundwater class. I took that class for fun, but sometimes it's not that fun. Particularly during lab writeups. On Wednesday, I was working on my writeup (these writeups take forever), and we have to put equations in. Word has an equation editor so that you can put equations in, and we're graded on using them. Well, I was using the equation editor, when it mysteriously made a division sign into a boxed question mark. When I tried to click on it to fix it, the whole document froze--and when I closed it, it wouldn't let me open it again. I had spent several hours on the project, and I was locked out of it! I was able to open it in WordPad and then copy and paste it into Word, but all of my equations were lost. The equations are pretty time consuming, so I had to put them all back in.
And just as I got to where I had left off on the previous attempt, the exact same thing happened again. The exact same equation, the exact same error, the exact same result. I was locked out of my document again. It was about 11:00 p.m. at this point, so I couldn't bear the thought of putting the equations in again, especially if the same problem would occur. I emailed my professor asking if I could have some more time and if I could put the equations in by hand--which would be both faster and safer--even though we're graded on using the equation editor.
I was granted permission to put the equations in by hand, although I don't think I got permission for it to be late. And it was late. I didn't finish by the deadline of 5:00 on Thursday. That's a terrible feeling. Oh well.
I did have a fortunate experience that night, however. I ate a smaller-than-usual lunch, and after a particularly exerting day in my swimming class, I was feeling a little weak. I bought a sandwich from the vending machine, intending to go buy a regular meal later. As the sandwich began to vend, it stopped, and I panicked that I wasn't going to get what I paid for. But then it started again, and instead of getting no sandwich, I got two sandwiches, and thus didn't have to buy dinner that night! I don't feel bad, because there was no way to return it, but more significantly because BYU vending machines have ripped me off a few times, so now we're closer to being even.
Three nights this week I went swimming in the evening. Swimming for Non-Swimmers is the lowest of the swimming classes, and I'm one of the lowest in the class. I just can't swim. But I'm definitely getting better. I'm best at the backstroke, but that's not saying much.
All my time spent on campus left me mentally exhausted, but the swimming left me physically exhausted. I don't feel like swimming is that exhausting. But apparently it is. On Friday night, after coming up the RB stairs and the stairs of my complex, I felt completely winded.
The next morning I went running. It had been two weeks since I had been, due to schoolwork and Halloween. I've been going on a new route, a route that is quite enjoyable but has some really steep parts. I have successfully mastered this route several times, but yesterday was just really hard. I pushed through the steepest part, but then later I was going uphill again and I just couldn't make it. I had to stop and walk for a few minutes. All day I was feeling the effects of that run. I'm not sure what to think about that--whether I should be disappointed that I didn't successfully make me goal, or whether I should be glad that swimming exhausted me to the point of not being able to finish a run.
Yesterday wasn't a good day to catch up on homework, because I had to go to two sessions of stake conference. Today was the last session of stake conference. They released our stake clerk, and as a ward clerk I got to know that clerk fairly well. At first he scared me, but I kind of grew to love him, despite his very odd personality. Most of the emails he sent out ended with "I hope this is as clear as mud." After they released him today, they asked him to bear his testimony. He told a story, and then for his testimony he sang a verse of "I Believe in Christ." It was very awkward. It always is when people sing in testimonies. But I'll miss working under him, even with his sometimes incomprehensible emails.
I remember hearing of a demotivational poster that, although I never saw it, said something like, "Blogging: Never has so much been said about so little." I feel like that's what happened here on this post.
One of my big assignments was a lab writeup for my groundwater class. I took that class for fun, but sometimes it's not that fun. Particularly during lab writeups. On Wednesday, I was working on my writeup (these writeups take forever), and we have to put equations in. Word has an equation editor so that you can put equations in, and we're graded on using them. Well, I was using the equation editor, when it mysteriously made a division sign into a boxed question mark. When I tried to click on it to fix it, the whole document froze--and when I closed it, it wouldn't let me open it again. I had spent several hours on the project, and I was locked out of it! I was able to open it in WordPad and then copy and paste it into Word, but all of my equations were lost. The equations are pretty time consuming, so I had to put them all back in.
And just as I got to where I had left off on the previous attempt, the exact same thing happened again. The exact same equation, the exact same error, the exact same result. I was locked out of my document again. It was about 11:00 p.m. at this point, so I couldn't bear the thought of putting the equations in again, especially if the same problem would occur. I emailed my professor asking if I could have some more time and if I could put the equations in by hand--which would be both faster and safer--even though we're graded on using the equation editor.
I was granted permission to put the equations in by hand, although I don't think I got permission for it to be late. And it was late. I didn't finish by the deadline of 5:00 on Thursday. That's a terrible feeling. Oh well.
I did have a fortunate experience that night, however. I ate a smaller-than-usual lunch, and after a particularly exerting day in my swimming class, I was feeling a little weak. I bought a sandwich from the vending machine, intending to go buy a regular meal later. As the sandwich began to vend, it stopped, and I panicked that I wasn't going to get what I paid for. But then it started again, and instead of getting no sandwich, I got two sandwiches, and thus didn't have to buy dinner that night! I don't feel bad, because there was no way to return it, but more significantly because BYU vending machines have ripped me off a few times, so now we're closer to being even.
Three nights this week I went swimming in the evening. Swimming for Non-Swimmers is the lowest of the swimming classes, and I'm one of the lowest in the class. I just can't swim. But I'm definitely getting better. I'm best at the backstroke, but that's not saying much.
All my time spent on campus left me mentally exhausted, but the swimming left me physically exhausted. I don't feel like swimming is that exhausting. But apparently it is. On Friday night, after coming up the RB stairs and the stairs of my complex, I felt completely winded.
The next morning I went running. It had been two weeks since I had been, due to schoolwork and Halloween. I've been going on a new route, a route that is quite enjoyable but has some really steep parts. I have successfully mastered this route several times, but yesterday was just really hard. I pushed through the steepest part, but then later I was going uphill again and I just couldn't make it. I had to stop and walk for a few minutes. All day I was feeling the effects of that run. I'm not sure what to think about that--whether I should be disappointed that I didn't successfully make me goal, or whether I should be glad that swimming exhausted me to the point of not being able to finish a run.
Yesterday wasn't a good day to catch up on homework, because I had to go to two sessions of stake conference. Today was the last session of stake conference. They released our stake clerk, and as a ward clerk I got to know that clerk fairly well. At first he scared me, but I kind of grew to love him, despite his very odd personality. Most of the emails he sent out ended with "I hope this is as clear as mud." After they released him today, they asked him to bear his testimony. He told a story, and then for his testimony he sang a verse of "I Believe in Christ." It was very awkward. It always is when people sing in testimonies. But I'll miss working under him, even with his sometimes incomprehensible emails.
I remember hearing of a demotivational poster that, although I never saw it, said something like, "Blogging: Never has so much been said about so little." I feel like that's what happened here on this post.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
There's only 362 days left till next Halloween!
The next time someone asks me what kind of movie I like, I think I'll tell them that I like really cheesy, poor-quality movies. It will be mostly true.
Throughout the Halloween season, I've been watching various Halloween shows and movies, and they get progressively longer. I watch all of the Halloween shows I own, whether I like them or not.
On Monday night, after an FHE in which my pumpkin won the contest (there was only one other pumpkin),
I watched The Nightmare Before Christmas. That is not a cheesy, poor-quality movie. It is beautiful and one of the most creative things ever. I have it memorized, and yet every time I watch it, I notice something I didn't notice before. For example, this time I noticed that in the scene where Dr. Finkelstein transfers half of his brain into the woman he's creating, Sally is in the background. She's just in the background, and she's blurry, yet she's still blinking her eyes and moving around. The amount of work in the movie is insane! It's always one that I like to watch with people who haven't seen it before. But that didn't work too well. My roommate Jordan had a bad headache, so he went to bed. My roommate Scott watched part of it (he'd seen it before), but then he too went to bed. My former roommate/current home teacher Zach Zimmerman was going to watch it, but he didn't come until the last fifteen minutes. Afterwards I had to show him the "This is Halloween" and "What's This?" sequences.
On Tuesday, I watched the new Frankenweenie movie. This is also a beautiful movie. Sadly, not many people have seen it or even heard about it, but it is a wonderful little movie. It's more beautiful than The Nightmare Before Christmas, although not as good. Both Zach and Scott watched most of it and seemed impressed by it. It's the scariest of my Halloween shows.
Then after Wednesday, the cheesiness came in. Scott was watching the World Series, so I waited for him to be done. I actually saw the end (although I wasn't really paying attention), but I didn't think anyone actually watched baseball anymore. I think the Red Sox should have slacked off for five more years--then it would have been 100 years since they won a World Series. But I guess it was fitting for it to be the year of the marathon tragedy.
Anyway, after the game, I turned on Mad Monster Party? I kept saying that it's one of the strangest movies I've ever seen. After the movie, Scott said, "I think that's the strangest movie ever created!" It's a 1960s Rankin Bass movie. The songs and the animation would make it a children's movie--yet the mild innuendos and darkness make it more of an adult movie. It's literally light, but the story and the sight gags are fairly dark, definitely darker than The Nightmare Before Christmas. Some of the jokes are funny ("It's her own fault for thinking so loud"), some are not ("How did he get an invitation? He has an unlisted tomb"), and some are just bizarre ("Quit acting like the Statue of Liberty!"). You get a surprise ending, Boris Karloff and Phyllis Diller as stop-motion puppets, and really weird songs.
Then, of course, Thursday was Halloween. I had classes during the day, but I finished my homework so that I could have fun. I went to a stake party that wasn't that fun and got my face painted to accompany my simple costume,
and then I went to a smaller party with some friends.Then I came home and Scott was watching Wait Until Dark (on KBYU!) and then I watched The Munsters' Revenge. That's a TV movie that was made in the late 70s (but didn't get broadcast until the early 80s). It's very cheesy. The only reason it works (and it barely does that) is because it had part of the original cast. If it had different actors, it would be completely intolerable (like The Munsters' Scary Little Christmas). After it was over, Scott said, "Mark, that's the movie you save for Halloween?" I told him I do so because it's the longest--that's the only reason.
Then the next day, I got up early to cut up a fruit salad to take to a work party. I listened to my Thanksgiving playlist, which has thirty songs. It may not be the greatest music, but it makes me feel so happy and so Thanksgiving-y. People who listen to Christmas music at this time just don't know what they're missing. I have most of the music from A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, recordings of hymns 91-95, and a few other odds and ends. The Thanksgiving version of "Linus and Lucy" is the best ever.
I went home for Friday night in order to get ready for Thanksgiving. My time spent at home means that I will have to be Johnny Tremain again today. On Friday I watched a YouTube video on my parents' big TV--it was another Rankin Bass special, The Mouse on the Mayflower, which hasn't been released on DVD. Which confuses me, because I think it would be easier to release it on DVD than on VHS, especially since many companies do manufacture-on-demand DVDs now. But I guess DVDs are starting to go into obsolescence now anyway.
Then yesterday I went with my family to go see Free Birds. It's a new movie about turkeys who travel back in time to take turkeys off the Thanksgiving menu. I read the reviews, and I expected it to be pretty terrible. I expected it to be like Disney's Chicken Little from 2005--so bad that the whole time you think, "This is stupid and not funny at all." It wasn't terrible. It wasn't great--certainly no Pixar or How to Train Your Dragon--but it wasn't terrible. It was a perfectly mediocre movie. I'd take a mediocre Thanksgiving movie over a mediocre Christmas movie or mediocre non-holiday movie any time.
Some people also thought it had a political agenda, promoting animal rights or decrying American imperialism. I guess if you were looking for that you might find it, but I don't think that was the intent of the movie. It certainly isn't promoting veganism, since there's lots of cheese pizza. I don't like how they made Myles Standish a villain, but I didn't think the movie had ulterior motives.
I just love Thanksgiving. I put up all the Thanksgiving decorations at my house. I also count candy corn as suitable for both Halloween and Thanksgiving, so I always go overboard buying clearance Halloween candy for Thanksgiving. In the last few days, I bought candy corn jelly beans, candy corn M&Ms, Starburst candy corn, caramel candy corn, s'mores candy corn, autumn mix, candy corn suckers, candy corn and peanuts, pumpkin spice candy corn, and a candy corn Blow Pop. When I showed Scott my supply, he told me I was going to get diabetes. So I'm sharing, because there's no way I can eat that much candy in four weeks.
I just love November!
Throughout the Halloween season, I've been watching various Halloween shows and movies, and they get progressively longer. I watch all of the Halloween shows I own, whether I like them or not.
On Monday night, after an FHE in which my pumpkin won the contest (there was only one other pumpkin),
On Tuesday, I watched the new Frankenweenie movie. This is also a beautiful movie. Sadly, not many people have seen it or even heard about it, but it is a wonderful little movie. It's more beautiful than The Nightmare Before Christmas, although not as good. Both Zach and Scott watched most of it and seemed impressed by it. It's the scariest of my Halloween shows.
Then after Wednesday, the cheesiness came in. Scott was watching the World Series, so I waited for him to be done. I actually saw the end (although I wasn't really paying attention), but I didn't think anyone actually watched baseball anymore. I think the Red Sox should have slacked off for five more years--then it would have been 100 years since they won a World Series. But I guess it was fitting for it to be the year of the marathon tragedy.
Anyway, after the game, I turned on Mad Monster Party? I kept saying that it's one of the strangest movies I've ever seen. After the movie, Scott said, "I think that's the strangest movie ever created!" It's a 1960s Rankin Bass movie. The songs and the animation would make it a children's movie--yet the mild innuendos and darkness make it more of an adult movie. It's literally light, but the story and the sight gags are fairly dark, definitely darker than The Nightmare Before Christmas. Some of the jokes are funny ("It's her own fault for thinking so loud"), some are not ("How did he get an invitation? He has an unlisted tomb"), and some are just bizarre ("Quit acting like the Statue of Liberty!"). You get a surprise ending, Boris Karloff and Phyllis Diller as stop-motion puppets, and really weird songs.
Then, of course, Thursday was Halloween. I had classes during the day, but I finished my homework so that I could have fun. I went to a stake party that wasn't that fun and got my face painted to accompany my simple costume,
Then the next day, I got up early to cut up a fruit salad to take to a work party. I listened to my Thanksgiving playlist, which has thirty songs. It may not be the greatest music, but it makes me feel so happy and so Thanksgiving-y. People who listen to Christmas music at this time just don't know what they're missing. I have most of the music from A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, recordings of hymns 91-95, and a few other odds and ends. The Thanksgiving version of "Linus and Lucy" is the best ever.
I went home for Friday night in order to get ready for Thanksgiving. My time spent at home means that I will have to be Johnny Tremain again today. On Friday I watched a YouTube video on my parents' big TV--it was another Rankin Bass special, The Mouse on the Mayflower, which hasn't been released on DVD. Which confuses me, because I think it would be easier to release it on DVD than on VHS, especially since many companies do manufacture-on-demand DVDs now. But I guess DVDs are starting to go into obsolescence now anyway.
Then yesterday I went with my family to go see Free Birds. It's a new movie about turkeys who travel back in time to take turkeys off the Thanksgiving menu. I read the reviews, and I expected it to be pretty terrible. I expected it to be like Disney's Chicken Little from 2005--so bad that the whole time you think, "This is stupid and not funny at all." It wasn't terrible. It wasn't great--certainly no Pixar or How to Train Your Dragon--but it wasn't terrible. It was a perfectly mediocre movie. I'd take a mediocre Thanksgiving movie over a mediocre Christmas movie or mediocre non-holiday movie any time.
Some people also thought it had a political agenda, promoting animal rights or decrying American imperialism. I guess if you were looking for that you might find it, but I don't think that was the intent of the movie. It certainly isn't promoting veganism, since there's lots of cheese pizza. I don't like how they made Myles Standish a villain, but I didn't think the movie had ulterior motives.
I just love Thanksgiving. I put up all the Thanksgiving decorations at my house. I also count candy corn as suitable for both Halloween and Thanksgiving, so I always go overboard buying clearance Halloween candy for Thanksgiving. In the last few days, I bought candy corn jelly beans, candy corn M&Ms, Starburst candy corn, caramel candy corn, s'mores candy corn, autumn mix, candy corn suckers, candy corn and peanuts, pumpkin spice candy corn, and a candy corn Blow Pop. When I showed Scott my supply, he told me I was going to get diabetes. So I'm sharing, because there's no way I can eat that much candy in four weeks.
I just love November!
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