Summertime

Wow, I haven't blogged in 4 months. Crazy. I guess I don't have much to say since I don't do much besides go to school, read for school, watch TV (usually online at that), and talk on the phone. I mean, I could write post after post about those things, but who wants to hear about that? As always, I've been motivated to write again by the fact that there is something else way more important that I should be doing: studying for finals, which start tomorrow. I never thought I'd miss W&M where we wrote more papers than took exams, but there you have it. I'm honestly not too worried about it since I've gone through this process before and came out relatively unscathed and since I think I have a pretty good handle on my classes. Of course, I could regret not spending every waking hour re-reading my notes and outline, but I don't see that happening. I've decided instead to take a moment and look ahead to the summer. I have a list of summer goals/projects, and I thought I'd list them here.

*Organize my many, many, many, many photos into albums. I already have a lot of pictures in albums, but I have hundreds, possibly thousands, more just sitting in a box, some of which are worthy of being preserved in a nice little book.

*Touch up some places on my wall with fresh paint. Apparently my landlord didn't think it was necessary to make the place look too nice before I moved in, so I'll do it myself. I wish I could paint my room purple, but that would be way too much work.

*Read at least 15 books. I'd set that goal higher, but I am taking two classes, working as a research assistant, and writing a 45-page paper for a journal at school, so I won't have much more free time than I do now.

*Finally make it to Mt. Vernon and the National Archives. Anyone who wants to come is welcome to join me!

*Try 10 new restaurants in the city. I tend to stick to a few that I really like, and I want to branch out a bit.

*See at least 10 movies in theaters. These will include Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Star Trek, Up, Public Enemies, (500) Days of Summer, Away We Go, and Julie and Julia. May include Land of the Lost, Year One, Bruno, Funny People, and Cold Souls. But definitely won't include The Proposal, Final Destination 4, Dance Flick, or Imagine That. See a summer release calendar here.

*Walk a bunch, wearing comfortable clothes since DC is killer in the summer.

I think that's it for goal and projects. I have a few fun things lined up, too:

*Trip to NYC the weekend right after finals (10 days!). I'm eating at Craft, going to the Museum of Modern Art, walking around the Central Park Zoo, going to a jazz club in the Village. It's going to be spectacular.

*See No Doubt in July (maybe June, can't keep it straight). A middle school dream come true! I've liked them pretty consistently since Tragic Kingdom, even though Rock Steady was not my favorite CD of all time and Gwen Stefani's solo stuff makes me want to rip the stereo out of the car and throw it out the window whenever one of her songs comes on.

*Visit my sister's family in Washington. She'll have a two-month old baby boy by then, so that's very exciting.

And that's it. Maybe I'll be able to update more over the summer.

Fifty

As I said in my last entry, I took the 50 book challenge this year, and because I am proud of the fact I was able to finish, here is the list of books I read.

1. Rabbit, Run by John Updike

2. All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren

3. Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution by Caroline Weber

4. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams

5. Native Son by Richard Wright

6. Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck

7. Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck

8. The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver

9. Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

10. Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer

11. New Moon by Stephanie Meyer

12. Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer

13. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling (re-read)

14. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling (re-read)

15. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling (re-read)

16. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore

17. The House of the Spirits by Isabelle Allende

18. Othello by William Shakespeare

19. Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress by Susan Jane Gilman

20. Kiss my Tiara by Susan Jane Gilman

21. Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas by Chuck Klosterman

22. When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

23. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

24. Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer

25. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (re-read)

26. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman

27. Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

28. The Known World by Edward P. Jones

29. A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr

30. The Gospel of Food: Why We Should Stop Worrying and Enjoy What We Eat by Barry Glassner

31. Big Coal by Jeff Goodell

32. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

33. Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

34. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon

35. Papillon by Henri Cherriere

36. Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens by Jane Dunn

37. Bill Bryson’s African Diary by Bill Bryson

38. Things I Learned about My Dad by Heather Armstrong

39. The Third Freedom: Ending Hunger in Our Time by George McGovern

40. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

41. Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk

42. Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk

43. Pink Think: Becoming a Woman in Many Uneasy Lessons by Lynn Peril

44. Bad Haircut by Tom Perrotta

45. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

46. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling (re-read)

47. Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation by Cokie Roberts

48. In a Sun-Burned Country by Bill Bryson

49. Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling

50. The Road by Cormac McCarthy

51. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

My five by five of 2008

I haven't updated this blog in months. I was really busy with school, and then winter break has kind of gotten away from me. I wanted to at least write up a list (or five) of my favorite things of 2008.

1. Movies I saw in theaters:

*The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. This is an epic, Forrest Gump-type movie about the life of a man who is born old and ages backwards. Brad Pitt, never one of my favorite actors, does a good job, but Cate Blanchett is amazing. It's based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald that I haven't read, but I've read that it's just kind of loosely-based on that. I can believe that since the movie is almost 3 hours long. Parts are a little too...sentimental...? I don't know. The story is being told to Blanchett's Daisy as she lies dying in a New Orleans hospital room by her daughter while Hurricane Katrina is bearing down on them, and those were my least favorite scenes. Just everything having to do with the daughter could have been cut and I think the movie would have been better for it. Other than that, it's a beautiful movie that holds your (or at least my) interest for the entire length of it with some really good performances, including the one by the actress who plays Benjamin's adoptive mother, Taraji P. Henson. See it!

*Doubt. Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman both do a really good job in this movie about a nun who suspects a priest at a Catholic school of abusing a young student. I don't want to give too much away, but I thought the best part of this movie was how open-ended it was; there is no definite answer, no neat conclusion, you're just left with a sense of doubt (apt title).

*WALL-E. I've written about this before, but I just watched it again the other day and want to reiterate how great it is. I still think it should be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, but it probably won't be.

*The Dark Knight. I also wrote about this before. Best comic book movie ever!

*Atonement. I don't think I've seen a movie quite so heart-wrenchingly depressing all year. But it was very well-made, very well-acted (even by Keira Knightley, an actress I usually can't stand), and very good at making you, the watcher, lose all hope for life.

2. Movies on DVD:

*The Darjeeling Limited

*Into the Wild

*There Will be Blood

*John Adams mini-series

*Gone Baby Gone

3. Books:

I took the 50-book challenge this year, and was actually able to finish 51 books by December 31st, due in large part to the fact that I spent so much of my free time reading this summer. My favorite five (that I had never read before this year) are:

*Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. Meeting him is still one of the best moments of the year :).

*Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. Never thought I'd like a western, but this is so good. Don't let the length scare you away; it's a relatively quick read.

*The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. My only complaint about this book is that there are too many footnotes that interrupt the flow of the story. I understand the book is based in all the history of 20th century Dominican Republic, and that that history needed to be explained in part to help the average reader's understanding of what was going on, but they were too long and too numerous.

*The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende. This book is actually kind of similar to Oscar Wao, in that it's a story about a particular family through several generations. It's really great, and has made me want to read more of her stuff.

*Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer. The only book on this list that wasn't read as part of my two-person book club, and the only one that isn't fiction. It's a very interesting look at fundamental Mormonism, and all the convoluted, patriarchal beliefs upon which that religion is based.

4. TV shows I watched for the first time this year:

*Mad Men

*Six Feet Under

*Pushing Daisies

*Gossip Girl (don't judge me, I know it's trash)

*Flight of the Conchords

5. Favorite Christmas presents:

*Digital picture frame. I love pictures, I love picture frames, I have a small apartment with limited space in which to put all of my picture frames. Perfect solution!

*iPod speakers. Now I can listen to my iPod in my room with better sound quality than that provided by my laptop.

*Gloves masquerading as mittens from J Crew.

*WALL-E on DVD

*A personal travel mug coffee maker.

My recommendation of the week

I do not have cable in my apartment in DC. I never thought I'd be able to survive without it, but it's surprisingly easy with most networks putting their shows online and with my Netflix subscription. And, you know, with that whole usually being too busy to watch television thing since I should be focusing at least 9o to 95% of my energy and attention on law-school-related stuff. Eh. I've taken this cable-free opportunity to catch up on shows I've never seen before but have always wanted to see. Mad Men, for example, has been on my queue for almost three months. Sitting at the top of my queue, in fact, for that entire time. The fact that I have friends who live about two miles away from me, have had it on their queue for much less time than I have, and have still gotten it before me is nothing short of infuriating, and Netflix will be getting a very sternly-worded email from me in the next day or so letting them know what I think of their "long wait." I digress. One of the other TV shows I added to my list is Pushing Daisies, a show I always thought looked cute and quirky. I got the first disk yesterday and watched the first episode, and I absolutely loved it. That's still all I've watched, but I feel confident in recommending it to everyone as the cutest show that has ever been put on television ever. Like, in history. It's funny and colorful and original and so visually stimulating. Kristin Chenoweth is in it, and of course she's adorable. Lee Pace, the lead, is so good-looking that I don't know how Anna Friel's character is going to be able to resist touching him forever.

So, the premise: Pace's character Ned has this special power whereby he can bring a person back to life just by touching them. After one minute, though, another person has to die in that person's place, and if he touches the person he brought back to life a second time, that person will die for good. He teams up with a private investigator (Chi McBride, who I love) to collect reward money for solving murders by bringing victims back to life and asking how they died. He just brings them back for a minute, though, because as I already said, after that someone would have to die in their place. A childhood friend is killed, so he brings her back to find out by whom, but he can't bring himself to touch her again, thereby killing her, so she gets to stay living, but they can't touch ever again or else that's it for her for good.

What I love about it so much is that it's equal parts Tim Burton, Dr. Seuss, and those Walgreen commercials about a town called Perfect that I have always been particularly fond of. So I highly recommend this show, even though I've only watched episode 1. I'm going to watch the second episode as soon as I'm done writing this and if it's shit, I'll retract this entire post.

I want to live in Perfect:

Fun-filled

This last weekend was definitely one of the most, if not the most exciting, weekends I've had since my move to DC. So I thought I'd blog about it!

*On Friday, a friend and I went to the supposedly legendary Hawk n' Dove to watch the presidential debate. Apparently the Hawk n' Dove used to be a place where politicians would go and make back-room deals, but now I couldn't imagine that any of them would step foot in there since there's nothing to really distinguish it from any other bar in the city. It was filled to maximum capacity by the time we got there, but we were lucky enough to be able to find the last two available seats in the place before the debate got under way. I was worried that we wouldn't actually be able to hear anything since everyone was talking at full volume, but as soon as the debate began, everyone became silent. It was kind of eerie. I was amazed. I spent the entire debate distracted by (1) the lines on the bottom of the screen indicating the response from Democrats, Republicans, and Independents to everything the candidates were saying; (2) how much make-up everyone was wearing; and (3) the overwhelming desire for Obama to slap that arrogant smile off of McCain's face. My take-aways from the debate: McCain is a name-dropper, and his face would translate almost perfectly into a Wii character.

*Saturday, the same friend and I went to the National Book Festival held on the Mall. It was raining off and on, but that didn't stop us from heading out there to get books neither of us have actually read signed by their authors. See how ominous the sky looks with those dark clouds swirling around the Monument:

First we had Salman Rushdie sign The Satanic Verses, and then Cokie Roberts sign Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation. I have every intention of reading both, but it might be quite some time before I get to Rushdie's. Here is a picture that I hate of myself of my book being signed by Roberts:

*Then on Sunday, the same friend (again) and I went to see Kathy Griffin at the DAR Constitution Hall. We're both fans of her stand-up and of her hilarious reality show My Life on the D-List, so this was quite the thrill. We weren't lucky enough to meet her or to run into any of Team Griffin in the lobby, but the show was so funny that it was OK. She covered everything from her experience at this year's Emmy's to the Lohans to Nancy Grace. If you ever get the chance, I suggest you go see her.

I can't have many more weekends like this or else I won't get any work done. Though I do have some exciting things lined up for the weekends ahead, like a trip to Six Flags (for free!), a wedding, and possibly a trip home.

I know, I know

I know I need to update this blog, and I know that my last few updates haven't really been all that interesting, but I promise that I'm trying to think of something to write. I've been consumed by school for the last few weeks and haven't had a lot of time to think of anything good, let alone write about it.

For now, here's what I've been up to:

*Getting used to all the reading I have to do.

*Learning about torts, contracts, civil procedure, and how to properly cite statutes and cases in legal memos.

*Being astounded--astounded, I say--by people who answer their cell phones in the library and then proceed to have a full conversation with the person who called them WITHOUT LEAVING THE LIBRARY. This is right up there with doing the same thing in a movie theater. How can one be so unaware of the fact that so many people wish they would die?

*Been to two TJPPP-reunion-type happy hours. The first was last week when people who are still in the program came up for their monthly "Friday in DC," and the second was yesterday, and I was the initiator of that one, so go me because it was really quite successful. The turn-out was seriously impressive, I think mostly because we went to a place with such a great special ($1.50 for a pint of beer) and because the majority of people lived nearby. I actually drank two beers, which makes that the most beer I've had since the first semester of my freshman year of college when I had an unfortunate experience involving a forty and a lot of whisky that I won't go into here, but which left me unable to even stomach a hearty whiff of the stuff, let alone a whole glass of it.

*Talked to a few people at school.

*Watched the third season of Buffy, and started the fourth. Maybe I'll blog about how wonderful that show is once I'm done with the whole thing. There's something to look forward to.

*Baked chicken. It was delicious and nutritious, and it left me feeling very accomplished.

*Ate the chicken, though that probably goes without saying...

*Maintained a budget. I've been sticking to it so far, but this is only the first month...I guess it's not time to brag yet.

*Continued walking the mile and a half to the Tenleytown Metro at least three out of the five days I have school. It's getting better now that it's cooling off, but I probably shouldn't say that too often or else Mother Nature will be all like, "Oh yeah?! HEAT WAVE!" And that would suck.

Really, I think that's everything. I'll try to be better about updating; my life just isn't too blog-worthy right now. Although, I am going to see Kathy Griffin in ten days, so that'll definitely make it on here. Can't wait!

A little bit of everything

*Last movie I saw: Tropic Thunder. I thought this movie was absolutely hilarious. It makes fun of how self-involved/obsessed people in the movie industry are. My favorites are Ben Stiller as Tugg Speedman, the shitty actor trying to be taken seriously by starring in "deeper" movies, and Roberty Downey, Jr. as Kirk Lazarus, the serious actor who takes his job a step too far in undergoing some kind of skin pigmentation therapy to play a black soldier in Vietnam. Tom Cruise has been getting praise for his take on an overweight, balding, borderline-evil movie studio executive; there's even been a talk of this role redeeming his career, but I think it's going to take a lot more than one supporting role in one movie to bring him back from the depths of crazy he's chosen to so publicly plunge to in the last few years. There's not really a lot more to say about this movie besides that it's really funny. Robert Downey, Jr. continues to make me happy that he's making such a successful comeback--he's dreamy.

*Things that are bothering me: the heat, the walk to the Tenleytown Metro, the shuttle ride to school from the Metro, the shallow girls I go to school with, the feeling that I'll never have a life because I just don't have the time, many other little things.

*What I want to do: be picked for one of the junior staff positions on the Human Rights Brief, calm down, sleep, something fun this weekend.

*What I'm looking forward to: Kathy Griffin on the 28th, going back home eventually, Christmas break (already!), voting in November (and not for the crazy people, even if one of them is a woman), being done with this first year of classes, colder weather.