In the name of fun.

Kristy and I are going to see Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part One on Tuesday night. I just read a review that said the honeymoon scene is 45 minutes long. We're going to need a LOT of soda.

Speaking of food and drink, here is my edited version of a Breaking Dawn drinking game.
Most of this is off the internet but some are my own. I expect that taking this list will improve the entertainment value that the movie provides by 100%.

Take a sip of your beverage:

• When Edward bites a human
• When there's a toast at the wedding
• When the movie tries to justify Jacob's impending imprint
• For each of the bruises Edward find on Bella
• When the camera pans to Jasper
• Charlie ignores the obvious signs that his daughter is in a really bad relationship
• When someone turns into a werewolf
• When Alice makes that stupid smile of hers
• Every time Bella stammers
• Every time a camera shot lingers too long
• When someone compliments Bella

Take a huge mouthful: 

• When the creator of this monster makes her painfully obvious cameo appearance
• When Edward breaks the headboard (good grief, I feel disturbed just typing that)
• The getting-ready-for-the-sex montage occurs
• For each transition between horror and soap-opera that the movie takes

Chug for the duration of: 

• The wedding kiss
• Any vampire sparkling
• The wolf telepathic pow-wow (I've heard you might stop breathing if you try to chug through this scene, but we'll give it a shot anyway...)
• Bella drinking blood

Empty the bottle for: 

• THE IMPRINT

I don't know if I'll come back alive, even without alcohol....

I've never felt this way before....

So, the trailer for The Hunger Games was released today or yesterday, or something. Kristy posted it on facebook this morning and I've watched it three times now. 'One of those goosebump trailers' as Justin called it - the kind of trailer that has big swells of music between the different mood changes that gets you all excited. I was totally excited watching this trailer, and not just because they cast Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson, heh. Here it is:

Yeah, you get where I'm coming from with the whole goosebumps thing? It's a good trailer.

The problem is, I didn't like the book.

Now, before any of you Hunger Games fans freak out ... well ... nah, whatever. You can freak out. I'm about to explain the problem that I found with the book, and I don't really have anything to tone it down with, or a "however" or an "on the other hand" to conclude with, so if you feel insulted by the above statement feel free to look away now. I would hope that you're more curious than that.

Anyway, I purchased a copy of the book in 2010, because I was in America at the time and ever window and shelf in Barnes & Noble was covered in Mockingjay, the conclusion to the trilogy. So I thought, what the hey, I'll see what all the hype is about. I'm pretty slow on the uptake when it comes to  fandoms (see this post). The copy at B & N was about $23.97 or something ridiculous, so I went to Walmart and got a cheap paperback version for $6.90. Much better. I read it over a few days on the back porch at my Grandpa's house, but after the first few chapters it hadn't really grabbed me. Reading material was scarce however, so I kept going to the end.

The problem I had with the book was partly the writing style, but to be more specific, Katniss' voice and her emotional detachment to things. I'm gonna pull a Dana here and quote directly from the book to give you some examples of what I mean:

We [Katniss and Peeta] turn back to face the crowd as the anthem of Panem plays. Oh well, I think. There will be twenty-four of us. Maybe someone else will kill him before I do. (pg. 33)

The boy from District 1 dies before he can pull out the spear. My arrow drives deeply into the center of his neck. He falls to his knees and halves the brief remainder of his life by yanking out the arrow and drowning in his own blood. (pg. 233)

She's rather factual, isn't she? Sure, I get that they have to kill each other to survive. Yes, Katniss will just have to get over the idea of killing people to save her own life and not worry about who is dead. But that's just the problem! There seems to be no shock for her about the brutality of these games. She doesn't get used to it - she already is. I understand that she would have seen the games beforehand, so she knows what to expect, but I as the reader have not. I wanted to be able to grow with Katniss as the story progressed, not catch up to her. A reader should either be ahead or on par with their narrator, and on for the emotional part of the story, I felt like I was being left behind. 

Not to mention there's a weird/lame fake-romance storyline that develops in the second half of the book. Not sure what I thought of that. 

I enjoyed the concept of this novel (even though the whole dystopian thing wasn't much explained), but  found it hard to connect with the characters. 

NOW - here's the clincher. The reason why I started this post in the first place. We have a movie coming out. And unless a movie is really, really bad, if you like stories, you're more than likely to get emotionally involved with one. Movies can quite often be much better at emotionally involving the viewer than a book can, simply because it's visual (and there's epic background music). A film is able to capture more of your senses than a book can. Don't take me wrong, I love books. That's why I'm feeling a bit weird about this.... 

I've never felt this way before.... 

Is it possible that I could enjoy the movie more than I enjoyed the book? 

Is it even possible for a movie to be better than a book? 

March 23rd, folks. March 23rd will reveal all. Stay tuned. 

"I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested!"

What up.

Well, it's pretty much winter now so I'm enjoying the last few days my holidays holed up indoors with my Ravenclaw hoodie on to keep me warm. Hoping to get a few more decents blocks of writing in before TAFE begins on Wednesday.

So I'm finally getting into the serious planning of Eloquence. This has included and will include: combining several vague floorplans of Buckingham Palace to create a half-decent map of the interior; timing the minutes that the murderer will have to complete his or her deed between the different phases of a lunar eclipse; creating obscure steampunk weapons with which to assassinate the King of Collinsmere; researching poisons that will put someone to sleep; and taking all the game pieces out of Carcassonne and Monopoly to use as the thirty-one characters who are present in the palace at the time of the murder (and that's not including all the servants).

I think it kind of looks like a combination of a battle strategy map and a game of Cluedo. Thanks Mom for let me take over the world dining room :) 

This my Princess, and her dashing partner at the dinner party, Prince Gareth of Auchterwilde.

 Yes, I have been spending my weekend plotting a murder, no I do not plan to use any of my findings to assassinate the Queen of England. Promise.

Wednesday...

...was a pretty good day. I was sitting in Berkelouw's bookstore cafe with Hannah yesterday afternoon and we decided that now would be as good a time as ever to start exercising again, so we made a little schedule of the time we have before class and now we're going to start jogging (ahem, walking...) for an hour three times a week, and then go to class.

This seemed like a fine plan and so this morning (calling each other up just to hear Saskia Hamilton as our ringtones) Hannah swung by and picked me up and we cruised over to Sydney Park ... while the sun rose higher and got hotter.

In hindsight it was probably pretty stupid to go walking at 11:30, when the temperature was as high as it was ... but we hadn't expected it to be so hot! Thankfully there was a cool breeze that made it bearable. We explored the park and let our inner-child roam free on the play equipment, met a cute German Shepard puppy named LuLu, and bolted the last few yards up the hill with Regina Spektor and Matt & Kim as our soundtrack. Like the cool indie kids we pretend to be.

We arrived at TAFE feeling like puddles thanks to the heat, but Web Design is in a tiny little room where the air conditioning blasts full board so we survived ... until the chill started to sink in and I wished I had remembered my jumper. Such is TAFE - it can be 40 degrees outside and you will STILL want to be wearing a jumper in the classrooms.

After that was the dreaded Exhibition Concept class, where the teacher is an arrogant noob who knows about as little as we do. Ugh. Oh well, at least we've attended every class so we can't really fail....

Home now, and early, which is nice :) Gonna chill out tonight and then do it all again tomorrow.

Wah.

You know those weighted blankets you can get for kids with autism to calm them when they're feeling overloaded? I wish I had one of those right now. I've been having trouble falling asleep lately, and I wish I had something to keep me in a tiny space where I could relax. I don't have a weighted blanket but when I came home from TAFE today I was feeling totally overwhelmed and distressed for absolutely NO reason whatsoever. Not even homework. Anyway, I needed something to calm me, so after dinner I started taking some chairs into my bedroom, and I borrowed the little fan from my parents room ... Dylan is sleeping over and he and Justin saw me doing this. The conversation we had went a bit like this:

Justin (watches me take chairs into my bedroom): What're you doing?


Me: Um ...


Dylan (light hearted sarcasm): She's building a cubby house, of course!


Me (looking awkward): Actually, I am...


The boys look at each other. Then look at me. We all laugh hysterically.

So yeah, I'm here in my blanket cubby typing this right now, still wishing I had a weighted blanket but feeling much better now, especially because I am accompanied by my beautiful little paperback copy of Never Let Me Go, which FINALLY arrived in the mail. I am only five chapters in and quite enjoying it. It's beautifully written; a little dark; very curious.

So, feeling stressed? Build a blanket cubby! Hide yourself away from the world for a little while. I promise, it will do wonders for your mental stability in times of stress. :)

seriously tempted...

... to cut my hair like this.

Hmmm. Or grow it out really long. Opinions on which I should do first?