i tried to be like grace kelly

Well, classes are over for me! Until I start summer classes! YAY.

I'm not looking forward to it, but I kind of am. Mostly because if/when I finish them, I GRADUATE. Which is awesome and terrifying at the same time. Relatedly, I was way stressed when I went in to see Dr. D on Wednesday, and I pretty much admitted that even though I've invested all of this time and money and years into broadcast and film/art, I still don't know for sure what I want to do. It was good to get that out and everything, especially because I was worried I was going to have a break down and cry moment at some point in one of my classes. God, I hate being a stress crier.

I made it through the last day of classes on five hours of sleep. There were other people in my film class who had been up like, all night and were operating on fumes. I ended up getting a tiny, tiny Slinky from my professor, which was neat. He has a box full of random things he gets when he goes off to festivals and tech shows and such, and the baby Slinky was among some of the things.

I got home around 3 because I was out shopping and stuff, and I was enjoying my first moment of Looking at Stuff on the Internet Just for Fun when I got a little sleepy. I was planning on going to one of the early shows for Iron Man 3 with Theresa and Jason, so I figured I could kind of lounge in bed for a little before. And "lounging" turned into a 90-minute nap. Whoops.

I did get to the movie--we went at 10 PM--and I got this awesome cocktail at the bar that they called a Reactor, and IT GLOWED. (There was an LED ice cube in it for that special arc reactor blue, but still, glowing alcohol.) So I'll end with that, and I DECLARE THIS AN IRON MAN 3 DISCUSSION POST. Spoilers may be found in the comments, proceed at your own risk. (I liked it LOOOOTS, and loved that it's basically another Shane Black/Robert Downey Jr. movie that takes place around Christmas.)

Guys, I am so underprepared for everything tomorrow. I can't remember if I have a critique in sculpture and either way, I have done NOTHING related to my project, and I might have four things that should be in progress for film and I'm only half done with one.

I just want to cry and quit school and become a professional dog trainer.

I had one of those moments in which I wondered if I'd done something to upset the balance of my universe or something, because as I was getting ready to go into Barnes and Noble this afternoon so that I could study for my French test tomorrow, the review sheet WITH ALL OF MY NOTES FLEW OUT OF MY NOTEBOOK AND INTO THE WEST SOMEWHERE. It happened so fast that I didn't realize the papers were gone until I opened my notebook and proceeded to have a mini-meltdown in the mall parking lot for about five minutes.

I think I spent the first half of my shift at work wanting to go hide in a corner and cry.

What is up with me:

1. Finished my French homework. Verbs and tenses are ridiculous. I'm just having a hard time with them. I think I'm pretty much going to dedicate at least a half hour a day through next week to reviewing passe compose and everything else so that I don't bomb my test. Also, I missed a few assignments from the last chapter, and I'm hoping that if I pull up my test grades and finish the rest of the homework, I'll do okay for the rest of the semester.

2. OH MY GOD, HOW IS THANKSGIVING NEXT WEEK?!

3. NaNo is coming along slowly! I'm almost 3000 words behind, but I figure I can make it up tomorrow and Thursday. Hopefully I can switch shifts with someone so that I can pop in to the Night of Writing Dangerously for a little bit. That's always fun to go to. Also, I can't wait to incorporate self-written cheesy boy band songs. [dances]

4. I also want to write ALL THE FAN FICTION all of a sudden, too. I still have that Avengers boy band AU that I need to really get into, plus sequels to various things I wrote, plus a continuation of a 5+1 thing I started this summer and got really, really stuck on. I know how I want it to end, but I'm in the noveling phase right now, so it will have to wait 'til I reach 50K.

5. I know exactly what I'm getting my mom for Christmas already. Usually I have the hardest time picking out things for her, but everything's planned out so far. I just need to buy it. I'm going to get her the first season of Dallas (original recipe Dallas) on DVD, and also a piggy bank for a vacation fund with $25 in it.

Everyone else? I have NO IDEA.

6. I'm going to make my Christmas card post tomorrow. Stay tuned.

7. I spent the better part of this morning watching The Lizzie Bennet Diaries on YouTube. I watched the first ten episodes during the summer and lost track, but everyone else has been buzzing about it lately, so I figured I'd catch up. It's fun!

I don't know why I latched on to Marina and the Diamonds' Electra Heart, but damn, that album is one of my favorite things right now. Of all the songs, "Lies" just kind of guts me in the best way, because I've been there too many damn times before, and because it reminds me so much of something I'm working on right now.

I don't know why I'm writing this; more than anything, I'm stalling on writing my statement to go with my portfolio review stuff. I have to hand this in first thing in the morning and I am terrified that I will get it back tomorrow afternoon and discover that I've been kicked out of the art program, which will mean I'm screwed on both degree fronts. So if you feel inclined, please cross your fingers and/or pray for me, because I'm all kinds of freaked about this. Hell, I almost accidentally deleted my first movie (which I have not watched since I handed it in way back in May '09--GOOD LORD), I'm that worried.

This is all I am asking of the universe right now:

Lord, please get me through this ten page analytical essay and five hours of work, so that I might once again join the land of the sane and well-adjusted, and so that I might live to see Thursday and spend fourteen hours at a theater eating, drinking, and being merry. Amen, and amen.

Cinephiles, I need your help!

I have to write a critical analysis for my Film as Art class. I decided on writing about musicals and their stylistic choices, and thus far I have only three movies in mind: The Band Wagon, Singin' in the Rain, and Moulin Rouge. For the sake of variety, I would like to add at least two to three more choices to my list. So what musicals would you suggest?

Today was one of Those Days, wherein things are going normally and then you are hit with a terrible surprise. Mine was checking my bank balance and seeing that I had $6, which--no. I am going to have to have a Talk with my bank tomorrow.

It was a long-ass day otherwise. I've been up since about 6:30 (after sleeping about 6 hours or less), I left the house around 7:40 for the dentist, and only just got home from my writing group around 8:45. If I didn't have homework to do, I would go into hibernate mode 'til morning.

In the meantime, I'm trying to finish that critical analysis for my YA lit class (YEAH, I KNOW, I HAVE BEEN WORKING ON THIS PAPER FOREVER) and feeling relieved that I am not actually trying to catch a cold. I can get sick during spring break.

If you watch enough TV and enjoy it in a non-passive way—in the kind of way that those of us who are in fandom and tend to get very into our shows do—you might have thought up the kind of show that you would one day like to watch, if only you had the connections and money to create this show.

I was thinking about this the other day, and about how high school shows sometimes tend to be about the jocks and cheerleaders and the artsy kids and the loners, and I was thinking about how my high school experience was definitely not like that, and I thought, "If I could, I would make a show about the kids on the yearbook staff secretly running everything."

Because think about it: what's in the yearbook is forever, more or less. The protagonist could be the editor, who wants to make sure that every club, sport, and organization gets equal coverage and wants to make the yearbook experience more interactive, and the antagonist could be the head photographer/photography editor, who has for years been taking bribes from random clubs so that they can get more pages than others and posts the worst pictures of people that they have grudges against.

Basically, it would be like the high school Mafia.

As much as I like this idea, I don't know if it would work because yearbooks aren’t as big of a deal any more.

On the writing front: I've made it a goal to finish the first draft of my Epic Teen Romance by June, but I'm stalled, stuck around chapter four. I really want to use part of it for my creative project in my YA Lit class, but I don't know which part! I'm also having a hard time thinking of which book I want to use for my critical analysis paper, and I have a few ideas of what I'd like to do with that, but I don't know if I could find the scholarly research necessary for it. I'd love to one day write something about book to TV show adaptations and how they add variations to the book world (see: Gossip Girl and how Chuck Bass went from being mostly in the background to being one of the major players on the show).

And instead of writing the novel, I wrote a poem the other day:

the universe says that every young love is bound by the same rules:
when in each other's arms, they believe they are inseparable,
that the grasp of time and space cannot contain them,
that they will beat the odds, break the chains, and obtain a kind of immortality.
they believe that this is completion, this person staring back at them
whispering secrets, sharing stolen moments and clandestine dreams.
of course, they could be wrong—far too often they are.
first love is rarely eternal, never perfect,
but then, is any love ever without flaw?
it could be that this is why we believe in the power of silent moments,
of a glance that sets your soul alight.
that love—this first love—is flawed and flawless,
hopeful and hopeless, the most beautiful contradiction imaginable.

You know how there are little things that whoever you're attracted to will do that just... does it for you? It could be something simple or something that could verge on being a fetish or a kink, but when someone attractive does it, it just makes you FEEL THINGS.

( That happened to me yesterday. )

In unrelated news: in Art and Gender today we watched part of La Dolce Vita, and one of my classmates knew exactly what I was talking about when I called Sylvia a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Also, we're going to watch one of Antonioni's movies next class, and I'm pretty sure that I remember a reference being made to him in a Peanuts movie. I love it when I randomly remember pop culture references from books or cartoons that I was into as a kid.

I really, really want to see Maroon 5 on Christmas Eve. And Kelly Clarkson in February.