Tristan and Isolde

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,

And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;

Where can we find two better hemispheres

Without sharp north, without declining west?

Whatever dies, was not mix'd equally;

If out two loves be one, or thou and I 

Love so alike that none can slacken, none can die.

                                The Good-Morrow

                                      -  John Donne

Before Romeo and Juliet there was Tristan and Isolde. Two countries at war. A boy Tristan is orphaned by an Irish attack and left to rebuild with his devastated community. Years pass and the Irish come back to pick off the remains but this time the English are ready. Tristan, as the leader and father figure's right hand man, lead in the attack and victory is killed by the poison of the sword of the Irish's leader who he kills. Or so they think. Tristan's funeral boat drifts ashore Irish land where the Irish princess finds him, heals him, and they fall in love. But he does not know she is lying about her identity. He must leave her before the King finds him. He returns a man raised from the dead, but alone. The Irish are devastated and wants the English to fight for leadership among each other, so the King offers forth his daughter as a price and peace among the Irish and English countries. Tristan sets forth to win the princess, but on behalf of his adaptive father. Not until he wins and claims the princess as the future wife of their future King does he learn that his savior and love Bragnae, is actually Isolde the Irish Princess. Now they must live among each other, but not as one. Could you let the one you love leave you for the betterment of all people?

This is the most incredible love story. Love of family. Love of a country. Love of a your other half. It will make you cry, is does for me every time. It raises questions of every caliber, ones that make you think of how you would react to this situation.

Prepare your eyes for dark picture techniques, and your ears for listening through the Irish accents. Attention will be needed throughout this entire film. But it is most definitely worth the little effort.

Update

For living in a insanely winter state, Minnesota is not living up to its normal snow levels. The temperature is cold, windy and horrible, but the snow where is it? I don't like the cold but snow always made thing better because it makes everything pretty (even when it is piled on top of my car).

So enough about the weather, even though it does seem to control my everyday. The planner is consistently staying full and complex, but all is well. Courses consist of Reading in the Content Area (a course for Secondary Education Major on how to incorporate reading in all subject areas), Confessional Writings (an expansion on Doctrine and Article Written on Doctrine), Teaching Religion, Physics, Teaching Physical Education, Teaching Social Studies, Piano and Organ. Not too difficult of a schedule and the least amount of credit I've had here ever. It is weird getting back in the routine though especially since on Tuesdays and Thursdays I don't have class till 1pm.

I'm still able to help out with basketball each week by making schedules for their extra half hour work outs, plus running the plyometrics and yoga sessions. The girls season is going AWESOME! They are not only number one in the conference but they haven't lost a conference game yet, and have an overall record of 13-5. Playoffs come at the end of February and I can't wait to see how they do!

Work at Kegel has been great. I waitress and bartend now and have been getting tons of hours. We have had some interesting work days including our heater breaking and causing our entire party room to smoke up and send all the guests away. Then this past weekend a pipe burst in the ceiling making water come down one of the walls and short circuiting a TV. We did even know it happened and just thought the TV was broken, until everyone started smelling burnt rubber. When I went to investigate I found sparks flying from the electrical cord and then discovered the water pouring down the wall. I kicked the cord from the wall and got the manager. Eventually we got people up in the ceiling to check things out. We had to turn off all the water, which is kind of an important ingredient in running a business. We were able to get at least cold water after an hour which meant at the end of the night cleaning required us to boil water in coffee pots till be had enough to wash down tables and do dishes. Thank goodness it was really busy in the bar area at all, just in the bowling alley. I'm just hoping when I get back tomorrow everything will be fixed. My goal is basically to save up as much money as possible so I don't have to worry about money during student teaching next year, and be a little bit set before I hopefully get my call next Spring. Now if I can just find a job for over the summer, that would make life even better (so keep your ears and eye open for me).

Anchor is in the process of planning our Casino Night. I named it "Puttin' on the Ritz." I wanted an old Hollywood theme and the whole group is really into it. I can't wait to show you pictures of all the ideas that hopefully will materialize.

I'm looking forward to the end of the month when I get to travel down to Doral, FL to teach for a week at my friends Amanda's school. Then the two of us will travel up to Orlando for some site seeing and then I'll spend a week with the Florida family.

Besides the basic world of school, work and friends I continue watching MANY TV shows, movies, have become obsessed with pinterest.com, and are preparing to take a friend's engagement picture this spring.

I hope all is well with everyone and I would love to get some email updates from all of you!

That was so WICKED!!!!

It is impossible to watch this movie without reliving the late night viewing of 'Jack-Jack Attack." Between the late Taco Bell run, sleep deprivation, and sheer state of delirium my siblings and I were practically on the floor laughing with tears streaming down our face. Like most Disney movies there is a little humor for both children and adults, and 'The Incredibles" offer up a barrel full. A little synopsis for you: superheros are forced to stay undercover and not use their powers to protect people anymore. But when Mr. Incredible has the chance to put on his mask again he snatches at a chance that may risk his family's protection. All in all "The Incredibles" may be outside the world of Disney love finding flicks, but its humorous lines and material, and focus on family and good over evil makes it one to add to the shelf.

Update

It looks like I've been slacking again, I didn't get around to writing over my midterm break because, well, I was having fun instead of just doing homework and work. So even though I will be home in a week and a half for Thanksgiving I know I won't get to see some of you, plus if I do I probably won't get to spill all of my many details on you. 

School. Like mid-break Thanksgiving break leads to a whole new world of projects. I will be working on the following: a Writing Workshop portfolio, Children's literature bibliography, Trans Media Project examining different medias of the Phantom of the Opera, Critical Analytically paper of the play "The Lesson Plans" by August Wilson, and a Piano audition. A long with all the many other individual homework assignment, quizzes and small exams it will be a long next three weeks of classes before all my exams. 

Work. I will officially be trained behind the bar on Wednesday. However, I have technically been working behind the bar after waitressing for a few weeks. Work is long and tiring, but I am really loving the money, and it's a fun environment to work in. (And i keep getting asked out by a bunch of creepers, it's great fun to turn people down...not!)This week though I will work five days in a row, I'm thinking it is because I won't be here over Thanksgiving break. So I will get trained Wednesday, work lanes Thursday, a party Friday and Saturday, and the bar Sunday. 

Anchor. I had one of my big event on October 30. It was AMAZING! It was a full team efforts this year. Of course I had my stress moments, but never did I feel like it was all on me, and that I had to do all the work. Here are a few pictures!

Pumpkin Carving...She carved one of the campus buildings, Old Main...it was incredible. There were so many great carvings the judges (the family whose farm we were on) had a very difficult time deciding first place. The one that won had four carvings around the pumpkin. 

 Caramel apples, like last year, were a huge hit. Of course I forgot we had heated the caramel last year, so it made it a bit difficult for dipping, but it all worked out because many people just wanted half an apple and it cut up. 

 Pie eating contest! After a long conversation on the phone with mom I was able to figure out a cheap way to make these pies for our contestants. Now they were nothing compared to the family pie recipes but the contestants didn't seem to mind the canned filling and off brand crust.

The contestants

 Some of our pumpkin creation. (Check out the one that is projecting the sun, the front is the moon and stars.)

The family has a DJ service, and they went full out for us. Everyone had a great time dancing, and we even had karaoke. 

A few of our members taught us all how to do some line dancing.

Now this technically was a costume party, so I was required to dress up. So again with a little brain storming with mom, I was able to put together a little 'Grease' outfit. (I went for the made-over Sandy). My hair was all big and curled, but it was INSANELY windy out, so I teased the heck out of it and put in a huge bump.

This was the flyer I made for the event. 

We collected over $500 toward 'Wounded Warriors.' Each year we are hoping to build our number in attendants, but we were pretty satisfied with our turn out, and all we heard was how much fun everyone had.

The list. So since Heather and I are one of the only ones left of our friends (and because we are surrounded by babies in all our classes and on campus), we created this list of things to keep us entertained while everyone is away. We called it the, "Five, fantastic, fun, fabulous, festive, funky, fresh, fierce, fascinating, fearless, flashy, foxy, flawless, free, female, fit, fetching, fancy, fantabulous, fashionable, fixated, found, frilly, full, (f)enominal, (f)ase, film festival. It started by her joining in on the movie watching, and the rest of the list is as follows: 

Minnie-Winnie-Opa (park) 

Rodney's Karaoke night

Twilight Breaking Dawn (see it after break and re-watching all the films)

Library Book Sale

The Cities/Mall of America

Cheese and Wine Night

Homemade Dinner Nights

Thrift Store shopping

Chinese Food

Wine-down

Herman Park Margaritas

Lean Wedding Song (learn a dance we can bust out at a wedding) (Suggestions????)

24-hr - sunset-to-sunset

Collect _____ (We haven't figured out a random item to collect yet) (Suggestions???)

Photo shoot (famous remakes)

Fashion show

Expand our palates. 

That is all we have right now, and it will continue even when everyone else comes back, but it is a lot of fun to have a check-list of things to accomplish. It is very 'Gilmore Girls' of us. So we have accomplished a few things on the list, the biggest one being over mid-term break when we went to The Mall of America, and boy did we do some good shopping.

We tried on a bunch of different hats on throughout the day, these were the least ridiculous.

Vera Bradley. I went in and let me tell you there were SO many patterns it kind of hurt by eyes lol, and way more expensive than the warehouse sale. 

Heather made sure we stopped at this crazy store with all the most random stuff ever. But it had to be one of my favorite stores. Anything and everything could be found here, and it was all so unique. You could walk around for hours and not see everything. (Which we did) I got a game called Don't Drink and Draw, I'm very excited to play it with the family. So this was one of the random books, it reminded me of "Everyone Poops," but this one is all about the science behind passing gas, letting one rip, farting, etc. etc. It was hilarious and I really wanted to buy it, but instead I read it aloud to Heather, and a few others gathered around to listen as well.

This book was so true, it was realism which people may mistake for sarcasm, but in all reality it was just truth.

 A jewelry hanger. I thought it was pretty cool, I love tree like features.

I thought this was a great teaching activity. This man took newspapers and created poems out of the words on the newsprint pages. He would black out all the words he didn't use and the poem would read down the page.

Once again love all the unique wood decorations.

And another. Except these are even better because they are birch trees. I totally would have bought them, but for $65, and no where to put them I figured it wasn't the time for that kind of purchase

And of course there were men everywhere holding bags, sitting around looking bored, or like this guy sleeping.

This was SO cool. This store sold huge bean bags chairs that folded out into mattresses. I want one!

As for the clothes. Well I got a dress, some tops, and a cool new travel duffle that doesn't smell like soccer cleats. We wanted Chinese, so I just started driving away from the city and found one on the GPS. It was super shady so we started driving again and ended up in the cute down town area, so we stopped at a bar and asked for a suggestions and ended up at the best place ever. It also proved my point to her and her boyfriend that Chinese does come in sit-down restaurants and are way better than buffets and take-out places.  

I'm really really excited to come home, it is really weird that I haven't been home yet. I'll be home very early Wednesday morning because Kari has student teaching and I have clinical, so we won't be able to leave till around 5pm. Add 12 hours plus a zone change and it looks like it will be 5 to 6 in the morning that we will be getting back. I'm looking forward to and expecting a delicious Thanksgiving dinner (hint hint), and a few breathing days before stepping back into the last three weeks before Christmas break. 

I guess that is it for this update, I will do a few movie entries tomorrow and get back on top of those movie clues.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

I'm not sure why this film makes me laugh so much. I should be terrified, appalled by everything in this film, and yet I sit and laugh and am happy at the end. This original playwright, for those of you who have never heard of this movie, is about a barber, who lives on the second floor, who murders people and sends their bodies to the basement, where the lady who owns the pie shop below  Mr. Sweeney Todd's barber shop bakes the humans into meat pies. It all happens, one because Todd, who is actually Benjamin Barker, needs to murder someone because he needs to get his rage out because he missed his chance at murdering the man who stole his wife and child and exiled him from the country. Two, meat is very expensive and Mrs. Lovett, the owner of the meat pie shop, needs to make business. She remembers Mr. Barker and is in love with him, so they concoct this idea and make a fortune murdering people and selling the bodies to the towns people deprived of good cheap meat. I don't know if it is simply the fact that Johnny Depp and Helena Carter, who play the barber and meat pie maker, can hold the most serious and unphased facial expressions, or if it just because the whole concept is just so barbaric and ridiculously pouring out with the fakest red blood ever. It is a musical, which adds to the humor, because there are certain lines which are so depression and sad, that it is funny. The costuming and overall seriousness of the film is hysterical. Murder shouldn't be funny, it isn't, and it is terrifying to hear that this kind of thing may have even happened in some way, but making a musical, which usually embodies happy stories, about murder is so ironic that it makes the topic funny. I don't know if I would laugh quite as much if I would have seen this as the play first, but I think that Depp and Carter do add a lot of the humor to the film, but I think that the musical aspect intertwined with the gory mess of murder creates this weirdly funny movie. Or it could be that my friend Kristie and I are just really weird, and have found our dark side in this movie.

Lost in Austen

Jane Austen would roll over in her grave if she saw this movie. I decided to pick a movie suggested to me by netflix...it was interesting. Set in British, Amanda only wants to live the life of Elizabeth Bennett. She gets to do so when one day Miss Bennett comes through a door in Amanda's house. So Amanda goes to Elizabeth's world, while Elizabeth stays in Amanda's. Amanda makes a complete mess of everything that is suppose to happen in Pride and Prejudice. It was a typical "modern person messes up the past" kind of movie, and has to figure out how to get it back in order. And yet I have no idea if I liked it. It was like watching a very cheap version, with very ugly people, of the eloquent and lovely world I've always loved. I had to promptly put in Keira Knightly's 'Pride and Prejudice' to recover from this horrible film. This movie had a great title with terrible results.

Narnia, Mona Lisa Smile, and My Sister's Keeper

Narnia, what a fantastic series! I read these books a long time ago, and now want to reread them all. I think the first movie was made fantastically well, and I've see the second one, but only once in the theater, so I plan to rent it soon. I remember it being good, but that it wasn't completely with the books, which I've heard is true about the other Narnia movies. But the more I read and watch, and study film through my class, the more I learn that the original material for movies comes from books more often than not. So we get mad that a movie changes the material from a popular book, but forget about the little books that didn't make it, but then became something because a movie was made about it. I've learned that I can no longer judge a movie to its book. It will always be different. It is absolutely impossible to create a film completely based off a book unless they want a 8-12 hour long film. Now even though I would enjoy watching that long of a film, I'm thinking sales might go down in the theater. I credit the writers and directors who do their best to follow the books, and honor the authors for creating the original material, but I also know they have to do something to create shorter films while making sense of the material for the audience. It is only when a film follows everything to a T, but then changes the ending that I get a bit upset (My Sister's Keeper). But even with that, I've learned about creative privileges. Time and time again we recreate art. Sometimes the original is better, and sometimes the new is more well liked. Generations determines this, professionals, class, gender, etc. all determine which should be better. We get upset when the new version comes out, but fail to realize that we can never create something original in art again. I was told this once in a English course, that nothing will ever be original again, it has all been done before. Think about it, every story, movie, musical lyric, everything has technically already been created, we just rearrange the original to make something new. It is sad in a way, but then it also gives us that wonderful thing, creative privilege. In 'Mona Lisa Smile' Julia Robert's character pays notice to this pondering thought. "What is art, and who decides?" Her character challenges her students to see view to new ways in life and in art, but in the end are we to conform or be ourselves? So the film maker of, 'My Sister's Keeper', decided to change the ending from the book. I thought it was rude, and inconsiderate, but he took his right to creative privilege and created the ending we all expected in the end, the one we thought would happen in the book, the less shocking and complex for all viewers. Was he right? Was his ending better? Did he create a more realistic film compared to the romantic ending in the book? Look at a film separate from its book, it really can create a whole new meaning, a two sided view on the same topic, and an equally entertaining and enlightening experience.