The Realm of the Pachyderm

1. On Thursday, I took my D&C Midterm. I rocked that piece with a 93%, which I feel was well deserved after a week of studying and worrying about it. To put it on the record, I'm not a good tester. Most of the problem used to be that my studying was really disorganized, so I'd try to cram everything in the night before. However, now that I've taken a Study Skills course, my scores and habits have improved noticeably.

B. I watched the last half of Titanic the other night with my roomies. After thinking about it for a while, I came to the conclusion that it was totally Rose's fault that Jack died. If she'd just stayed in the lifeboat like she was supposed to, Jack would have had more time to make his way onto a lifeboat AND they wouldn't have wasted time and energy running around in the freezing waters of the sinking ship! Alright, they did get the chance to be together when he died, but I think his chances of survival would have increased quite a bit--regardless of the fact that he was in C-class.

iii. It's my birthday is four days. This birthday is going to be a strange one, since it marks my official exodus from the most angst-ridden category of Teenagedom. Not that all the angst will automatically disappear, but I won't be lumped together with the mall rats anymore. This is excellent!

Cuatro: Speaking of interesting movies [which we weren't], last night was really funny. After going grocery shopping, we were unloading our food when we were approached by three people from our ward...

Will: "Hey, you guys! You want to go to the Dollar Theater?"
Me: ::A little hesitantly, since I was thinking about the sweet plans our apartment had to watch Lars and the Real Girl...until I realized we were always griping about not having enough social interaction:: "Sure! What are you going to see?"
Will: "Seven Pounds."
Me: ::Large intake of excited breath::
Andrew: "What, is it bad?"
Me: "No, it sounded awesome! I've been meaning to see it!"

So, with that, we all put our groceries upstairs, then trundled back down to the cars with what seemed like half the ward [a few more people jumped on the moviewagon] and headed to said theater.

However, upon arrival, we were dismayed to discover that our desired movie was sold out. But since the fires of cinematic desire were still alight within our bosoms, we decided to head back to Wyview and watch a movie on our neighbor's gigantic tv a la 1980-something. We were leaning towards Pirates of the Caribbean, but then someone spoke up and said they had the original Manchurian Candidate, and my heart just about stopped.

20 minutes later, we're all crammed into this girl's living room while awaiting the glory of Angela Landsbury's almost Benjamin Buttonlike face to appear on the screen. Personally, I think trading off Seven Pounds for The Manchurian Candidate isn't a bad deal.

5. After that riveting adventure, I was still awake enough to cram in one more movie. This lead to my first viewing of Lars and the Real Girl. What an incredible movie! It definitely starts out as one of those where you're laughing every four seconds because of how implausible the whole thing is, but by the end, you realize that you're a big jerk for ever laughing so heartily at such a pitiable situation. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. It's pretty different from anything else I've ever seen.

F. My chantering is coming along well. I started to learn how to play "Minstrel Boy" a few days ago, and I'm actually get the hang of it played almost up to speed. It's exciting to see the progress you can make in such a short period of time :]

vii. I've been obsessed with the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack. I downloaded it the other night with the help of some Border's giftcards I had sitting around, and now it's basically all I listen to.

Well, that's about it for now. I know that was kind of newsy, but there it is. Should anything else of intense interest manifest itself in the week, you'll be the first to know.

Until then...