It's Kind of a Funny Story

So I posted yesterday about how I had just picked up a new book, It's Kind of a Funny Story. And then I finished it at 3 am last night. I have mixed things to say about it.

Obviously it captured my attention because I finished it in two days... but it was also incredibly easy reading and had a very large font. It's quite clear to me that this book is meant for young teens, probably those who have struggled with stress or depression because it's all about a young boy who gets into a very difficult high school and then finds that it's too much for him and ends up clinically depressed. It wasn't that it was a bad book, just that it was a little below my reading maturity level.

It had some amusing parts to it and for the most part I enjoyed reading it, but I was bummed that there was pretty minimal character development and really not a whole lot of a plot line either. The climax of the book seemed just a little too high-school-drama for me. I do understand that it was based on the author's own experiences though and is supposed to send a message of hope and life, which was evident at the end. Kind of. It was no Rent, though.

Another thing was that I kept looking for the zach galifianakis character that is shown a lot in the trailer. There were a couple people that could possibly be him but no one in particular and that was a disappointment. It also gives me the feeling that the movie version is going to add in a whole lot of plot that was absent from the book. It's rare that I think this, but I'm pretty sure the movie is going to be better than the book.

[Ok, I just watched the trailer again before I put it on this post and now I know who Zach G is supposed to be. He's playing a character named Bobby, which I suspected as I read the book- but instead of Bobby being one of numerous secondary characters, they actually make him an important character in the movie. I wish the book had done that.]

That said, this is not a bad book. It's just definitely more appropriate for early teenagers who are just beginning to deal with real problems, become interested in the opposite sex, and figure out who they really are. If I read this when I was 14, I bet I would have loved it. And I still enjoyed it now, just not as much as I wanted to.

Oh, and the author threw in this 2- page weird almost-sex scene in the last 30 pages of the book that was kind of like a "wait... wtf?" moment, but I forgive because I think he's a young author and somewhat inexperienced in writing novels.

Anyways, I give this book a rating of 3 stars and an overall "meh". I wouldn't recommend it to any of my friends, but I would probably recommend it to a bunch of 9th graders.

Here's the trailer for the movie, which I now want to see even more (to see how those crafty film-makers make it better!)

Webcam Fun

This is the 50th post of GO1000F which is both exciting and also kind of pathetic because i've had this thing since March of this year! Ah, well... I'm posting much more now and I'm going to keep it that way. This is just going to be a short and silly post of all the ridiculous pics stewie and i took last night while we were messing around with the extras on my computer's webcam.

 One of the extras makes you look like you're breathing fire when you open your mouth. We took about a zillion pictures trying to make it look like we were both doing it, but i guess it only works for one person. this pic is still hilarious though :)

 Since stewie couldn't breathe fire, I let him be the censored-eye man.

 Me as a Tim Burton character!

 two-headed emilem!! lol

 Creepy fat unibrow'd double-necked stewbean

 Stewie as a Tim Burton Character!

 lol^^

 bitey monsters

 covergirl and boy :) I didn't get to choose the captions on the magazine though :(

 my favorite! we look so pathetic.

arrrgggggg!

haha. that was our silly friday night. enjoy the rest of your weekend!

The Weekend So Far

I'm am thrilled to announce that it has FINALLY cooled down here in Tucson! Highs in the low 70s may not sound too cool to the rest of the world, but it has been the most amazing thing for me down here. At long last, I get to wear outfits like this:

 

Hooraaaay for thick socks and tights  and cardigans and plaid dresses^^ I'm so thrilled about it. PLUS, stewie and I went to walmart yesterday and they were selling pie pumpkins for 50 cents- that's like the cheapest opportunity for a [delicious and homemade] pumpkin pie ever.

November has been trudging along and I'm counting down the days until I get to drive home and spend a glorious 4 day holiday weekend in Prescott. After I get back from that it's just 1.5 weeks of school and 3 finals left and then a whole month off to go to california and mexico. yay :)

As for this 4 day holiday weekend, I've been loving it. I've been taking it sooo easy, letting my muscles heal from the intense workouts I put them through. I'm pumped and ready to get back in the gym tomorrow while Stew is at work- I've found I really love going to the gym, even though it really takes it out of me and sometimes leaves me really sore. The soreness just means that what I'm doing is working though, so I don't mind... not to mention for some strange reason UA has enough money to put fricken tvs on all the elipticals, treadmills, and bikes so that you can literally watch satellite television while you work out. This concept still blows my mind and I'm not sure that I approve, but it was kind of fun to watch scrubs and hell's kitchen while I ran. 

So the harry potter marathon is a whole weekend long thing, and they've been showing the directors cut of the movies so that means 3-4 hours for each movie- I love it! stewie and i make dinner and sit down to watch at 8 or 8:30 and the movie isn't over til midnight! today it starts at 5:30 and goes till midnight, because they're showing both 3 and 4. I can't wait :)

We also made some awesome hp treats to make the experience even more fun- I made an almost vegan and alcohol free butterbeer out of cream soda, earth balance, werther's butterscotch hard candies (the non vegan bit), and vanilla soy milk. It came out really, really yummy and looked pretty authentic when we poured it back into the ibc cream soda bottles.

yummmm. I also made vegan cupcakes (like I promised I would!). I made a red velvet cupcake recipe that was supposedly from the babycakes cookbook (a vegan cupcakery), making just a couple adjustments like all purpose flour instead of spelt flour and sugar and water instead of agave nectar (I'm a broke college student people, I gotta use what I have!). I tried the batter and was worried it wasn't sweet enough... and after baking the first batch decided I was definitely right. Also, they had a weird zingy chemically taste from the baking soda/powder- no surprise because the recipe called for a total of 9 teaspoons of the stuff! I had been wary to add that much but decided to trust the recipe... a mistake, it turned out. The second batch came out much, much better though because I thinned the batter out with some extra water and added some more sugar. then i topped all the cupcakes with a vegan cream cheese frosting and decorated them with yellow lightning bolts! So, so cute^^ and very yummy in the end.

Oh, so a couple other things- I finally ordered The Time Traveler's Wife on Amazon a couple days ago. I've been wanting to read it for FOREVER and I loved the movie and books are usually better than movies (says the film student.. hmm...) so I can't wait for it to get here. I LOVE buying books on amazon because sometimes you can get them really cheap. I got a NEW paperback of TTTW for $1.85 plus $4 shipping and handling. such a good deal :)

I also picked up It's Kind of a Funny Story at Stewart's college's library yesterday and am already 100 pages in. It's definitely a book for highschool students, since the protagonist is 14 years old and the font is about 3 sizes larger than I'm used to, but so far it's still a good read. It caught my eye because they're currently making (maybe its already showing?) a movie version of it that looks really good/funny/uplifting. 

I'll let you know what I think once I finish it. I'll probably see the movie too and then compare. 

Anyways, that's my weekend so far! Tonight is date #1, vegetarian italian stuffed peppers, more butterbeer and cupcakes, and harry potter 3 and 4! oh, and maybe some work if I feel like it haha. See you tomorrow lovies!

So I know I already said this yesterday, but...

I am sooo beat! I've totally been kicking my butt at the gym this week. I feel like every single muscle in my body is tired or sore... but it feels really great, in a weird way. I really need to start going to the gym early in the morning though, because lately I've been going around 6 or 7 at night and then I get home and just want to crawl into my pjs and get into bed and not leave for many, many hours. I think if I go during the morning not only will I be more energized, there will be fewer annoying douchebag guys in there. People who work out early early in the morning are there just to work out and don't care about impressing anyone else... and that's exactly what I want :)

me, incredibly, incredibly tired from all this crazy working out and school stuff. blegh, ready for vacation!!

So Stewart's mom came down yesterday and left today, and as usual when hanging out with members of stewart's family, it was an interesting experience. Not that they aren't all lovely people, but his mom's side of the family are all conservative christians and I'm a liberal who believes that religion doesnt have a 'right' or 'wrong' way to be practiced- a sentiment most of them downright refuse to believe. I'm still perfectly pleasant, but there always seem to be at least one or two instances where I have to hold my tongue and just smile and nod. I'm happy that Stewart turned out the way he did- or else I probably never would have ended up dating him haha.

The whole reason she was down here, though, was to help us check out some houses around Tucson. Stewie and I are hoping to move out of our crappy messy apartments and find a nice, quiet, little house where we can be in more control over how things go down. Stew's mom is thinking of maybe buying a foreclosed 3 or 4 bedroom house that we like and then while we're living there we can rent out the other rooms and pay less on rent ourselves. Or, we might just rent a cheap 1 bedroom on our own. Both sound like good ideas- if we got roommates, stewie and I could interview them and make sure we like them, and if we just live by ourselves I can feel confident that no ridiculous messes are going to be made, rent is going to get paid on time, and I'm not going to have to share the kitchen or living room with anyone else. Besides stewart, of course :)

We basically looked at houses all of today and it was pretty fun seeing them... some of them were ridiculously messed up though! I guess thats what we get for the price range we were looking at... but I'm talking like holes in the walls, decaying exposed floorboard, and trash all over the place. Blegh. I went home feeling like I wanted to take a shower- similar to the feeling you get after rifling through a goodwill outlet store (one of the ones where they don't wash the stuff first, they just roll it out in bins).

A couple looked pretty good though, and as I was looking at the homes (and their fenced in backyards) I got really excited about getting a pet besides my pet beta fish, zia! I would love to have a little puppy or kitty of my own to take care of... although I know it will probably take a lot of time and money to get to a place where I can support one. Still, it's nice to dream.

Well it's getting to be pretty late (haha, 9:20... I'm getting to be such an old fogey), so I think I'm just going to curl up in bed and watch a good show on netflix or hulu... hooray for no class tomorrow!!! I couldn't be happier. Harry Potter weekend, here I come! lol.

Lots of love!!
Em

Tired, tired tuesday

I am so exhausted! I love November but I hate all the craziness that comes at the end of the semester. I have at least one big thing to do or work on every week until the end of the semester- tests, projects, essays, blegh I just want to be done already. Money has been really tight so Stewie and I have put of grocery shopping for about 3 weeks now... luckily we have a lot of pasta and canned goods so I've been able to think of things to make but we literally have no fresh vegetables and that's killing me... I can't wait until next weekend when hopefully we can get food again. I also have lots of bills to pay and complicated annoying errands to run and thinking about it all makes me just want to curl up and go back to sleep. Every time I start to feel productive (like I did after turning in that essay yesterday), I remember all the other stuff I have to do and I go back to feeling suffocated by work. I hate it >.<

In other news, Stewie and I did a pretty intense ab workout last night and I woke up this morning feeling sooo sore. I've never experienced this kind of ab soreness so this must mean our workout really, well, worked lol. We also put together a lasagna yesterday afternoon (with of the one yellow squash I had remaining from my veggie shopping 3 weeks ago) and it was so nice to just pop it in the oven when we got home. Plus, now I have yummy yummy homemade lunches for the rest of the week. I think Lasagna gets a bad rep for being complicated or whatever, but it's actually one of the simplest meals ever... All you need is some ricotta, lasagna noodle, sauce, and fresh veggies. You can even make a vegan "ricotta" out of tofu and some other stuff that tastes exactly like the real thing- and then within ten minutes you have a delicious, healthy, vegan lasagna that just need to be baked for thirty minutes and will feed you for a week. But here I go talking about food like the big food nerd I am.

Here are some things to look forward to this week:
- No class on thursday! I couldn't be happier than this, I really need the weekend extension.
- Harry Potter Weekend on tv. I love the HP books and last year I read them all again and Stewie read them for the first time with me- so we're both huge fans. I can't wait for the movie to come out next weekend (we already have tickets), and this weekend one of the cable channels is doing a hp movie marathon- so stew and I are going to spend at least one day in our pjs with a bunch of tv snacks watching ALL the movies. I can't wait.
- Hiking. When my mom came to visit she showed me a couple really cool places to go hiking and I've wanted to go back ever since. Since we have a long weekend, I think this will be the perfect opportunity!
- Vegan cupcakes. I have some extra cupcake liners (because I had extra chocolate from the caramel apple witches so I bought liners and made peanut butter cups- lord knows I can't let extra things like chocolate and cupcake liners go to waste), so what better way to use them up than some delicious and not-so-nutritious-but-better-than-your-average-cupcake cupcakes? I'll probably bake these on sunday and eat them all week long.
- Getting work done. DONE. I have two big projects due next monday and tuesday and I'm going to get them done with this weekend and not think about them ever, EVER again.
- Date No. 1 of Stewie's and my 100 dates <3

*yawn* I think I may try to take a nap now before my 4 pm class. Gym and homework tonight and then early 10 am class tomorrow... counting down til the weekend :)

Movie Mondays: Wristcutters: A Love Story

Oh, Wriscutters. How I love you so. This movie is one of my favorites in the universe. Wait, I take that back. It is my favorite. I like it so much that I have named not one but two pet fish after the main characters. Like last week's movie, this film is gloriously indie and extremely creative... but mostly it's just straight up pure awesomeness at 27 frames per second (some media arts major knowledge comin' atcha ;) lol).

Now, don't be taken aback by the slightly gruesome and extremely emo-sounding name. This isn't a film about two romeo and juliet-esque tragically angsty teenagers who eventually end up cutting their wrists because their love is too great or whatever.

Oh, no. Quite the contrary. 

This is a film that takes place in a world that is not earth and is beyond heaven or hell. I suppose it's a type of purgatory, in a sense, but if purgatory had pizza joints and dive bars and long stretches of open highway in the middle of the dessert. This is the world where people go after they commit suicide.

Hang on, hang on, it's not as morbid as it sounds. Well, it's a little morbid. But it's mostly an absolutely enthralling look into human emotions and the idea of life and love after death. I'm getting ahead of myself, though... let me go back to the beginning.

Wristcutters: A Love Story is based on the short story "Kneller's Happy Campers" (which I own and read within an hour and then lent to a friend over a year ago and would very much like back, ahem, Jaimie!!!!) by Etgar Keret. The film pretty much follows the 100 page book to a T, with a few adjustments here and there such as changed names and of course a lot of additional material seeing as it's a full length film. Also, the ending is different... but I happen to prefer the movie's ending more.

The film and novella follow Zia (Mordy in the book- played by Patrick Fugit) from after he commits suicide and finds himself in a place that he describes is "the same, just a little bit worse". He works at a pizza place and spends his nights getting drunk with his only friend, a German singer/guitar player named Eugene (Uzi in the book- played by Shea Whigham). Interestingly, Eugene is based off of the lead singer of the gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello, and a lot of GB's music is on the film's soundtrack.

Zia soon learns that his girlfriend Desiree "offed" herself soon after he had, and so he and Eugene decide to jump in Eugene's car and drive to- well, wherever they can go- to try and find her. Along the way they pick up Mikal (Lihi in the book), a spunky, pot-mouthed, red-sweatshirt-wearing girl played by the oh-so-lovely shannyn sossamon who insists she got to this suicide-world on accident. Between the mysterious "bermuda's triangle" under Eugene's passenger seat, Mikal's persistent search for "the people in charge", and the bizarre miracles that seem to occur around an odd campsite-runner named 'Kneller', the movie is a whirlwind of the strange, the lost, and the wonderful.

I wrote my final comm 100 paper on this movie last year so I could literally go on forever about all kinds of symbolism and themes and uses of rhetoric, but I'll spare you the technical stuff and just tell you that this film is beautifully done both aesthetically and naratively, with a story that illuminates the beautiful in even the most desolate of places. The characters are incredibly unique, with such amazing depth that is not typical of most films you see today. It is seriously a beautiful work. Here's the trailer:



Love, love, love. Oh, and it literally JUST got added to the Netflix Instant thing online, so you can watch it if you have netflix RIGHT NOW. which you absolutely should :)

AND, it has Tom Waits in it. If that means anything to you, then you know you should watch this film.

Alright that's all for now... have a lovely monday!

Love,
Emily

Lovely Sunday

*Yawn* what a wonderful, relaxing, busy, and fun weekend. Stewie and I had our date on Thursday night and stayed up late late late watching the movie Groundhog Day. Have you seen it? It's a 90s Bill Murray film and neither of us had seen it since we were really little... My parents have it on VHS and I remember staying home sick from elementary school and watching it and thinking it was SUCH a good movie. And it really is. I love revisiting things from years and years ago.

Saturday was really lazy and relaxing (like, stayed in my PJs until 4:30 pm lazy and relaxing), but also pretty productive! I had a human geography and global systems paper to write (and if you were wondering, yes, it is the dullest class in the entire universe) and I was absolutely DREADING it. We were supposed to take our first paper from the semester and revise it/add a whole new concept to it and I HATE doing that kind of thing because when I write papers I usually just write the whole thing out in one sitting and then don't look at it again until the next morning when I reread it and make changes as I see fit. It's always worked for me. I hate spending hours revamping a whole paper... but I decided to get it done and 7 hours later it was. And it's beautiful, let me tell you- 3 pages of figures and tables, 7 pages of text, and a whopping 9 different sources. I better get a good grade on this thing >.<

Stewie convinced me to watch the first two episodes of battlestar galactica after I had finished writing my paper and picked him up from work... And I have to admit, I didn't hate it. It's still not really up my alley but I'm willing to keep going.

But today, sunday, was the really fun and productive day. I took stewart to work and decided to stick around the mall and do some shopping. I was in desperate need of a new wallet, since my current one looked like this:

and since I knew it was unlikely that I would be able to just buy a wallet, I decided to allow myself to spend 20 dollars (woo big money! lol... if only. 'tis the life of a jobless college student). I ended up spending 30 dollars, but I'm not complaining because it was money very well spent! Sometimes it can be really depressing "shopping" during these times, because I can't really afford anything even though everything looks so cute... so my shopping routine is basically just me wandering through rows of cute stuff fantasizing about being able to buy it and then checking the price tag and quickly hurrying along on my way. But today, that depressing routine was mixed in with some excitement at some really sweet deals! I'm not one to flaunt my things around for the world to see, but in this case I think it's pretty awesome that 30 dollars covered all of this:

That's a grey cami, sunglasses, a wallet, 3 cute hair clips, and two gorgeous gorgeous wintery/fall colored dresses- perfect for tucson. yaaaay.

After the mall, I went out to walmart to pick up some yeast and then came home to bake two loaves of fresh bread. I like to bake/cook on sunday so that I have lots of stuff to eat during the week :)

Since then I've been cleaning, doing laundry, messing around online, and putting off homework... I'll get to that after I pick stewart up in a couple minutes. It's been a really great day and busy busy week and I'm excited to start the new week tomorrow- only 3 days of class! Hope your weekend was fun and best wishes for your monday :)

Love,
Em

100 Dates

I can't get over how much I like this picture! I found it on we heart it and it reminds me so much of me and stewart, which is why I chose it for this post. It looks so much like us, aside from me being a brunette and Stewart not wearing such tight pants. Other than that... Stew has a shirt, hat, and shoes just like that and I wear skinny jeans and flats all the time. I even have a big bulky nikon and he has a little camera. And we would totally take pictures of each other taking pictures of each other. haha.

Hello

my blogger friends, just stopping by to say a quick "hi". Today was I guess semi productive but it doesn't really feel like it in retrospect haha. Stewart and I woke up laaate because we were up until about 4 am last night watching friends... oops. Then we both tried to work on important things on our computers. I looked into more study abroad stuff for Greece next summer, picked out my classes for spring so I can register at 6 am on monday, and then helped stew put together a 4 year plan. It ended up taking a lot of time and I had been planning on whipping out the human geography & global systems paper I have due on monday, but never got around to it... oh well, tomorrow I guess. Anyways, the rest of the night Stew and I decided to have a date night! We bought some yummy yummy aged irish cheddar cheese, I had some leftover chevre from the sundried tomato and raosted garlic cheesecake, and we got a loaf of french bread and a bunch of grapes. And then we ate and ate and ate. It was so delicious :) We also bought tickets to go to harry potter in 2 weeks and then we spent our whole date night playing board games! Haha. sounds kind of lame but it was actually really, really fun. We played parcheesi (which was my favorite), a game called Albuquerque, connect four, and a chutes and ladders like game. So, so, so fun. I'll post more about it later along with the super cute and awesome idea we had... But for now, Stewie just got out of the bathroom and now we're going to watch a movie! Have a happy friday night, see you tomorrow!

Love,
Em

Quick Update and Late-Semester Woes

Hey! First of all, I just want to say hello to the few new people who have been reading and leaving a couple comments. Welcome! I'm so glad you are here!

 

Haha. how cheesy am I? Anyways, seriously, I'm so glad people are finally finding this blog and enjoying reading it. It makes keeping it up twice as fun!