So I saw Elizabethtown friday night, and liked it. I went with friends who didn’t see it because of Orlando Bloom and had heard it reamed on NPR’s movie review just prior to arriving at the theater, and liked it anyway. It was funnier than I expected. It was glorious seeing Orli’s face up close like that (and we were close. The Moolah’s couches are very close to the screen, and it’s a big screen, and we were in the second row. I think my neck is still a little sore, lol) and overall I was happy with the movie. It’s no Almost Famous, but it’s a worthy effort by director Cameron Crowe. I’m not sure it deserved all the drubbings it got from the critics. I can see some of what they’re talking about, some slow moments and a little bit of weird editing, but shoot, Return of the King had that too, and look how that turned out. I wonder what the cut was like at the Toronto Film Festival, where ETown premiered, since apparently it was so bad that CC was forced to recut it.
There were lots of funny bits. There were definitely things I could relate to, like the scene where Drew (Orlando’s character) first meets his country cousins. I’ve had that happen to me before; there’s this room full of people who know me, and know me well, somehow, even though they haven’t seen me since I was yea-high to a grasshopper (aka a very long time ago), and they LOVE that you’re there! It’s weird and offputting and strangely gratifying. Seemed like there was a lot of reality in this movie, for all that it’s larger than life.
I suppose I can see where some of the complaints came from. Some parts are a little long, true, and some of the scenes didn’t quite flow. There were technical questions, like why on earth wasn’t test-marketing done on this shoe (Drew is a shoe designer who spent eight years designing this one shoe which turns out, as the movie calls it, to be a total fiasco), and honestly, whose cell phone battery lasts all night? And how exactly did they have Drew getting lost on the way to Elizabethtown (which is on exit 60B, in case you were wondering about the title) when it looks like a straight shot from the airport to the town? But those don’t seem like reasons to pan the movie. Just observations.
Author: etoiline
a heck of a place to find yourself
StandardIn honor of the new movie Elizabethtown coming out today, you have a new layout. Lots of new things tried in this design, and it’s not finished yet. I hope you like it…it took me a long time to learn the CSS. Please forgive the odd placement while I try to figure out which stupid DIV tag isn’t closed. Everything that you remember should be here, it just might be in an odd place. If you see something that you know absolutely cannot be right, comment, and I’ll see if I can fix it. And if you notice it, it’s most likely that I noticed it too, since it’s still being updated. I hope to have an archive page redesign up soon, but it might be a while. I’ve got a list that’s slowly but surely being checked off. If the colors are screamingly annoying, comment, and tell me what colors would be better. I like having my (ahem) fans’ input.
Tonight not only do I get to see a movie with Orli, I get to see it at the Moolah Shrine Theater which has couches in the first five rows. Hopefully we’ll snag one of those, but it’s first come, first served, so who knows?
And it’s official…I’ve got my tickets to Vegas. Now all I have to do is not spend any money from now until then, and I’ll be ok…though I really want an iPod Nano for the trip. Wouldn’t that be grand.
Spooky links
StandardExtending the life of your Pumpkin
Now all I have to do is figure out what my costume is going to be. Anybody got a grey sweatervest?
It’s a fangirl day
StandardThe world is wide, and I will not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum. –Frances Willard
Kingdom of Heaven, the Etown score, and Lifefrom Ricky Martin (yes, that Ricky Martin) all come out today. I’m excited. I’ll have time tonight to head to the store (there’s even rebates at FYE! Score!) after I talk to one of the deans from WU Arts & Sciences about med school. I feel like such a n00b about it. I don’t even really know the proper progression of what happens once you’re in it. That and I have to write essays. And find science teachers for evaluation purposes. Natch. But anyway, once I’ve spent they very little money I can this week, I’ll be a happy camper since I will have Orlando goodness to watch. Whee! Maybe I can remember to pick up a new notebook at the campus bookstore, as it seems I’ve lost mine. *tear* all those ideas. Hopefully I’ll find it, but it’s not looking good.
Happier note, I found out that I did in fact get 100 on my A&P test, which just rocks my socks. I hope that the next one can be so high. I have a lab practical exam this week, which I suppose I should prepare for…I’ve probably mentioned it before, but usually I do better in labs than I do in the lecture. Here it’s the opposite. Oh well. Study harder. Why oh why didn’t I do that when I was actually in college? Ah, hindsight.
Still waiting on those MCAT scores. Oh, and the contents pages (linked above) have been migrated to MT. So there’s nothing new, just makes it easier on me to put something new there when I finally do get a chance. Best be off to work.
Aced, baby.
StandardSo I had my first A&P test last night. The prof gives us two answer sheets, one for him and one to keep, and he puts out the answer key right after the test. And I checked said answer sheet, and unless I mis-circled an answer on the turned in answer sheet, I got all of them right. Hot damn! I think that might be the first aced college test I ever had. Hopefully the rest of the class will go so well. Will have a take-home test in lab this week and then a practical next week. The overall grade is the average of the class and the lab…so far doing much much better in lecture than lab, which is odd, b/c usually it’s the other way ’round for me.
(we’ll just forget about the part where I was too sick to study for this test, shall we?)
And GO CARDS! They won the first game of division play, though it got tense at the end. Went from an 8-0 shutout to an 8-5 win with the tying run at bat…but yay. Let’s go Cardinals!
Indulging my fandom
Standard…that’s what I did this weekend.
I helped my parents set up the Parkway West show on Friday, then went home after being with my parents for the night. Thought I might try to make it to an “interactive” Pirates of the Caribbean showing (in the style of Rocky Horror Picture Show) but it was at midnight and there was no way that was going to happen, especially if I was going back to that same place at 10 tomorrow morning…
because I spent Saturday at Archon, the “St. Louis” sci-fi convention (it’s actually in Collinsville IL, but close enough). All day. I was there (well, at Bob Evans for breakfast) at 9ish, then the show opened for the day at 10. Was there until the masquerade was over around 9:30 pm. Looong day.
It was expensive, though only because of the entrance price. I didn’t buy anything there, which is sort of surprising for me. It’s too bad that I didn’t know I was going until the week before; the writer’s group I’m in met on Tuesday and we all talked about going. I’m glad I did, because I had a lot of fun. Saw some art, some dealers, went to some panels, watched a D&D game (that I could have played in, but decided not to. Fun to watch though) went to some more panels, and then watched the masquerade. I wore my Harry Potter outfit. I was asked for two picture poses, so that’s cool. I only actually met one other “student” from Hogwarts, which I thought was odd, considering that the fourth movie is coming out in november. I’m glad I went, and especially glad that I was able to go with a group, even if said group didn’t exactly stay together for the whole day. It would be nice to go all four days, but a) that’s expensive and b) I don’t know if I would be able to last through all the parties, hah.
Speaking of parties…
still here
StandardFinally, the blog is back up again. You might not have noticed, since the index page was still up, but I had to go back in and reinstall everything before I could get the entries I made last week to show up. So yes, I’m still here, but just now had time to download and reupload everything. Cross your fingers that things continue to work.
Tonight is the writer’s meetup for the month and I feel bad. I did very little writing, and I can’t claim the MCAT as an excuse this time :blush: :rolleyes: I do have a story idea for this year’s NaNo, but it would involve me learning about religion, which I don’t know if I would feel comfortable doing. It’s not that I’m not religious; I just don’t want it shoved in my face for a month. If that’s not it though…I need a new idea.
And I shouldn’t be thinking about that anyway, since med school application should take precedence. But I’m sure you all know how good I am with precedence…Right now my problem is knitting/crocheting. I learned how to knit sometime last year, but the very first project I did (forgive the link, the gallery isn’t working correctly right now so the picture links are crucked. Just saving the place for future reference) was lost, so I wanted to try to make another hat out of the same yarn, with a matching scarf. Turns out that they don’t make that color yarn anymore, so I’m going to improvise and make a hat and scarf with fuzzy trim. Yeah. And I got a free pattern for easy crochet, so I’m trying to do that too. It’s darned hard to keep the number of chains right. In knitting you can usually clearly see where the next stitch is, but the yarn that I’m using for crochet is very bulky, which is usually good, things go faster. But in this case it obscures where the next loop is…so I’ve got a very lopsided scarf begun as I try to increase and decrease…I’ve got a shawl in the works too. Maybe if I ever finish you’ll get pictures.
Since I couldn’t post here for the past week, I put an entry on LJ asking why YOU think I should be in med school. So far the only response I got (feel free to add to this here 😉 ) was from my loverly friend Punz, who contributed the following:
hostage situation
StandardThis morning a 15-hour hostage situation ended in a house just a block away from my apartment. Apparently a guy had robbed a bank (although I’m not sure that’s really true) and was followed by police to a place near my building, where they tasered him. He got up, though, and ran into his house where his grandmother and young nephew were. He had a gun (or possibly three) and shot into the walls and in the direction of the police. They found out that the guy is mentally unstable and probably off his meds, so they didn’t think he would really be that violent and were willing to wait him out. Which they did.
Last night when I came home from anatomy lab (where we dissected a mouse, yawn) the main street to turn down to get to my place was blocked off by yellow tape and about five police cars. Luckily I know the neighborhood enough to be able to get through the maze of one-way streets that comprise it, so I was able to get to my apartment, but there were some streets blocked off that I bet had a lot of wrong-way driving going on, since the proper direction entrance was blocked. Cece and I went out on the porch and could see the SWAT team running up to the house. It was funny because they looked all serious and determined as they ran up to the house but then they just stood there in the doorway. Maybe they were waiting for the guy to let them in. The SWAT guys didn’t want us out on the porch though, they waved at us with a ‘get out of the way’ sort of gesture, so we went back inside. Didn’t want to get hit by a bullet.
That’s pretty much what happened all night, they had negotiators trying to talk him out, until this morning when I got up. I went into the kitchen to see if anything had changed, which it hadn’t, and that’s what the news stations reported. My mom wanted a picture, so I retrieved my camera from my room to take a shot, and when I finally got the house in view, I took the picture without even realizing that the police were leading someone out. So I actually got to see the police take custody of the guy. I also didn’t realize that my flash was on, so I hope they don’t come storm the place because I distracted someone with the flash 😉 It was funny because they had literally just reported that the situation was still ongoing. Sounds like everyone was ok, and that the police had encountered this person before. Hopefully this time he can get some psychiatric help.
Just thought you’d like to know about it…it wasn’t really all that exciting. I missed all the gunshots and just saw the police barricades. Though it was interesting to see the guy walk out in cuffs, he looked like a normal person. Be safe out there.
And now it’s time for a PSA: Please make sure that if you’re out driving this weekend you YIELD to pedestrians in the crosswalk, even if they are there illegally. Pedestrians, YIELD to oncoming cars and use the crosswalks. The police are going to be giving out tickets, in hopes of lowering pedestrian-car accidents. Be careful out there!
Things Other People Accomplished When They Were Your Age
StandardWas looking through my old blog entries to see if I could find my GRE score (and lo and behold, I did!) and found a link to this page. Yay for inadequacy.
At age 25:
The future mythologist Joseph Campbell decided to move to Woodstock to read the classics for five years, nine hours a day. Living on very little, he would make himself readily available as a dinner guest.
Orson Welles coscripted, directed, and starred in Citizen Kane.
By this age, Charles Chaplin had appeared in 35 films.
P. T. Barnum bought a “160-year-old” slave woman and began a career in show business.
Janis Joplin made her first recording, “Cheap Thrills,” which grossed over a million dollars within a few months.
Chris Burden created “Painting Shoot,” which involved the artist being shot in the left arm by a friend.
Charles Lindbergh became the first person to fly alone across the Atlantic, thus winning a $25,000 prize.
Fayette, N.Y. farmhand Joseph Smith founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He claimed he translated the Book of Mormon from some golden tablets revealed to him by the angel Moroni.
Bavarian painter Aloys Senefelder invented the lithograph.
French engineer Benoit Fourneyron invented the first waterwheel turbine.
Sarah Bernhardt scored her first triumph, being asked to repeat her theatrical performance before Napoleon III.
Activist Mollie Steimer became the first person to be deported from both the United States and the Soviet Union.
Physician Roger Bannister broke the four minute mile. As he collapsed unconscious into the arms of his trainer, the loudspeaker announced, “The time was three…” The uproar of the fans drowned out the rest of the announcement.
woes and whatevers
StandardSo I started on the AMCAS application last night. You know, the one that determines whether I get into med school. I don’t have my MCAT scores yet but I figured I might as well get what I can finished now before things get too crazy when I do have the scores. And as it is likely that I’ll have to take the test again, this is sort of a test run 😉
Though the application means I need to write the dreaded “why I want to go to medical school” essay. Ugh. I knew this was coming, but to actually have to delineate my reasons…that’s not easy for me. I’ve got the whole ‘helping people’ thing, which is true. I want to have a positive impact on someone’s life, perhaps many someones. I can’t see myself staying in lab research forever, though I do think I would like to continue research as a doctor. I’ll admit that there’s a nice financial incentive to it as well. You know, work a while, make a little money, then I can write to my heart’s content. Yeah. (speaking of writing, I don’t know if I’ll be able to do NaNoWriMo this year. My cheerleader is wavering. Alas.)
Then there’s the whole ‘cool’ factor of being a doctor. While I certainly don’t think my life will be anything like Grey’s Anatomy there’s bound to be more interesting stories to be had from the life of a doctor rather than the life of a research technician. I just can’t think of a slick way to say that on an application. I just think it will be very exciting, yet stressful. I think I could be a good doctor, especially with the work that I’m doing now (what with meeting patients and recruiting and all) but sometimes it doesn’t sound like me.
I know no one will answer this, but what do you think of when you consider Jen as doctor? Why do you think I might be good with an MD after my name?