Winter News

After the fifty billionth person told me that I needed to watch "Frozen," I finally checked it out.  I don't know if I'd endorse this movie as enthusiastically as the entire world seems to be doing. It was lovely and the "Arrested Development" references were fun, but IMO the film was more forgettable than, say, "Wreck It Ralph." (Hope you're all impressed with how I spend my free time.. comparative children's cinema seems to be my forté these days.) However, I will say that the entire movie is worth watching if only to hear "Let It Go." They should advertise it as the most empowering 4 minutes of your life, or your money back. 

Are you rolling your eyes about now? Cause that's what I did every time I heard another 20-year-old geek out about how they blast "Let It Go" on Friday nights...  And yet, here I am. Blasting this Disney song. While Ernesto hides in the bedroom with headphones on so that he won't have to hear me try to hit all the high notes. 

I've made it my personal goal to watch every single cover and foreign language version of this song, but if I had to choose just one video to share with you, it's this one. The singer, Christina Bianco, blends "Let It Go" with a bunch of celebrity impersonations. 

Besides feeding my obsession with children's movies, I've also been watching the Winter Olympics (read: crying non-stop in front of the TV). How do Liberty Mutual and Oikos yogurt commercials manage to elicit the same response from me as seeing the world's greatest athletes defy gravity? One minute I'm mopping up my tears and yelling "YES DO THE FLIP SCORE THE POINTS YOU'RE AN AMAZING HUMAN BEING," and the next I'm sobbing, "YES TIDE IS CLEARLY THE NICEST-SMELLING AND MOST INSPIRING DETERGENT IN THE UNIVERSE." I'm disgusting, but at least someone in advertising is doing their job right. Is it you, Peggy Olson?

In addition to all the winter-themed shenanigans going on --including our very own snowpocalypse in Dallas, i.e. a whole half-inch of snow that shut down half the city-- Ernesto and I went to another breathtaking Josh Ritter concert in January. Still not sure whether he ever got my creepy gift, but a girl can dream. I've decided to take his involvement with the Parenthood soundtrack as a sign that we're best friends.

November happened, and some other stuff

- I originally started writing this post like two weeks ago. It was a Friday night, mere seconds after I'd finished NaNoWriMo, which was supposed to be this really great moment and I had all these plans as to how I was going to celebrate (i.e. I bought a box of brownie mix) (like, quality brownie mix. Ghiradelli double chocolate brownie mix)..  aaaaand I got about 15 words with my Caps Lock on into this blog post before falling asleep on my sofa at 8 pm. #woooo #lastfridaynight

SO, I slept a solid 13 hours and woke up on Saturday not feeling lame at all. Maybe I felt a little bit lame, but to be honest witchu, a good night's sleep is what I've spent the last 4 years fantasizing about throughout college.

I'd wanted to write about Nanowrimo, but that train lost steam a loooong time ago. Suffice it to say, Nano'12 was a trillion times better than Nano'11, probably because I went into it this year with something vaguely sort of similar to a plot. Having something like a plot made this year's writing a lot more fun and significantly less terrible, but the terrible started to show towards the end of the month. That much is evident in this screenshot:

the not-so-glamorous writing process

Needless to say, I took a much-needed break after this really painful paragraph. It feels pretty to good to be done with the whole thing, mainly so I can spend all of my free time playing Song Pop again.

- Speaking of "literally".. I recently saw this tragic/hilarious Presidential Barbie at Toys R Us.

Barbie 2012 stands on her own. (literally)

I saw this and wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. Just kidding, the only thing I could possibly do was laugh. A lot.

- Another hilarious thing I saw:

Annakeira Knightlenina.. how Uptown Theatre says "'Anna Karenina', starring Keira Knightley."

- I took this picture during my first night back in Minnesota for Thanksgiving. I'm telling you, it was like a sign from the gods of the Midwest. "Welcome home Paulina. Have some awkward wordplay." 

Anna Karenina was a book that I really, really wanted to like. And I did like it, but it was sort of like reading The Jungle in American Studies (the real ending happens about a hundred pages before the author keeps going on about idealistic social theories). It took me like four years to actually finish it because I kept starting and stopping, but once I got to the end (IN NOVEMBER! This month was full of defining moments for me), I could safely say that I like it enough to endure 2 hours of Keira Knightley. Side note: Jude Law plays Karenin in the movie, soooo maybe he's the real reason I want to watch it on the big screen. All I want for Christmas is to live-tweet this movie, and for Jude Law to retweet everything I write. 

- I am physically incapable of talking about Keira Knightley without mentioning "Love Actually," the movie that I watch by myself every December in a locked room so that no one can hear me crying the entire time. Is this movie the worst kind of emotional pornography known to mankind? Yes. Is that going to stop me from continuing the tradition this weekend? No.

- MY BROOKHAVEN MATH FINAL WAS CANCELLED! BOOYAH! ChRiStMaS mIrAcLe! I didn't even know something like that could happen. Take note, Carleton College. 

After celebrating the fact that I never have to divide anything in different bases again, I started thinking about what finals time was like in Carleton, and most of what I could remember was:

1. not sleeping

2. not showering

3. eating Basil's pizza for a week

4. hating everyone in the library for getting up earlier than I had to find a decent desk

In conclusion..  Oppa Brookhaven Style!

- I recently found out that my phone hasn't been sending all of the texts I write, so that's inconvenient. 

- Daniel freaking Handler was on NPR the other day while Ernesto was in the car and I wasn't even there to geek out about it auuuuuuugh. Talk about pearls before swine.. he didn't even read TSOUE. Fun fact: Jude Law plays Lemony Snicket in the weird movie version of TSOUE. That and GATTACA should be enough to justify how much I like this guy.

- I really don't have that much more to say on here. I just spent an hour in the kitchen deciding whether or not I wanted to bake cookies for some staff dessert potluck tomorrow. I looked up how to tell whether baking soda is still good or not and I tested mine (no worries, our baking soda is working fine).. so yeah. That's how much I value my time. Obviously, it was all for naught because I'm sitting on my bed writing on here instead of licking cookie dough off my spoon. One day, I'll learn to make good choices. 

Intro to Sculpture

"I can't stop thinking of this as a horcrux." 

        - my art professor during my sculpture critique in class today.

Not what I was going for, but definitely taking the credit anyway. Like an artist.