"Horrid, horrid [finals]!"*

A few months ago I auditioned for The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, a play being put on in my community, and won the role of Cecily.

I have to say, I adore this play! I am sure it has been said many times by many people but Oscar Wilde was a great writer. Everything said in the play either advances the plot or is finely crafted wit and satire. Having wikipedia-ed Oscar Wilde upon joining the cast there is one line that sticks out in particular to me.

And certainly once a man begins to neglect his domestic duties he becomes
painfully effeminate, does he not? And I don't like that. It makes men so very
attractive. (Gwendolen, Act 2, The Importance of Being Earnest)

Besides being a satircal comment on men and women in victorian times, it relates directly to Wilde himself. He was a very effiminant man, and I can't believe that this quote is a coincidance; it amuses me. :)

There are so many other very funny and clever lines, it is just a really amazing play and I can't wait to perform it. The cast definitly has a hand with the deliverance though, I feel so lucky to be on stage with such talented people.
And actually, I won't have to wait that long, we perform in two weeks. Not so lucky is that we are performing in two weeks. :O But I have confidance in us, and we shall work hard these next two weeks and it will all be worth it!

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* Actual quote, "Horrid politcal economy! horrid geography! horrid, horrid german!" (Cecily, Act 2, IoBE)

Restless

I have had some pretty epic dreams lately. There was the one were me and my friend Anna were escaping this evil house, and had to evade a religous cult who wanted to drug us to keep us quiet, avoid a pen of cheetahs, climb through this crazy mountainous valley (oxymoron yes, but In my dream it totally worked) and ended up being award a cure for a friend who was stil suffering in the evil house by these god-like people (think "the powers that be" from Angel).

Last nights dream was very Buffy-esque. There was this snake/lizard dragon thing that was trying to kill me (it had already succeded in killing someone before me) and so I was running aorund my neighbourhood trying to figure out how to defeat it and I met up with some guy who I beleive represented Xander (but i can't remember who it was, or if it was an imaginary person) then my Taekwondo instructer, who I think represented Giles (the training aspect) and my friend Anna was Willow because when we decided to just gather up the people from my DoJang to attack the dragon with swords I needed to call Anna to find out how to kill it (beheading, go for the eyes, ect). Sadly the morning mayhem woke me up before the conclusion to my dream.

I would love to know what these dreams mean (besides that I am maybe a little too obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer... but Spike wasn't in this dream, so thats new! Progress maybe?) but these are way to complicated to look up in any dream dictionary.

I shall have to search deep within myself to discover their true and deeper meaning.
...
...
...
Ok, thats enough of that, I'll just let myself enjoy these dreams at face value.

"Is Everyone In This Room Very Stoned?"

I just finished watching the last episode of Season 5 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Oh. My. God.

I definitly balled my eyes out. A-MAZING ending, but oh so terrible...

Gotta love Spike tho.

I'm posting now cus I don't want to go to bed so soon after such a such episode, and I don't have much really to say other than...

Curse you Joss Whedon for your amazingly addictive genius-cruelty inspired writing! And those actors, with there amazing acting skills, there no help...making the words come alive, and creating attachements to the fictional characters that are either gonna die, do something to make you mad/frusterated, or your gonna love'em and be tortured cus there just fictional.

Dang thats a good show.

It has been a while since I have last posted, has it not? Well after finishing Candide I read Something Rotten by Alan Gratz. It was alright - It was a mystery and I am not a huge mystery fan. It was Shakespeare themed though, so that was cool; it was what made me pick it up in the first place. So that took my a while to get through, and then I didn't/don't really have anything to say about it, so no blog. Then I read American God's by Neil Gaiman, and it was a fairly long book, though it was pretty good, so that took a while.

The book I read after that is the book that I will review today- My Fair Godmother by Janette Rallison. After Savannah's older sister steals her boyfriend, Savannah is given three wishes by her "fair" godmother (Chrissy, the godmother, hadn't done well enough in school to be consider a "fairy" godmother, just a "fair" one). Chrissy misinterpets Savannah's wishes and sends her back into medival times as Cinderella, and Snow White, and it is not as nice as the fairy tales make it sound. A boy from Savannah's school gets sent back to the medieval age by Chrissy and Savannah as to help him so they can both get home. It was a very cute book, with a very easy to get into kind of style of story telling. I liked the characters, and how you got to see the boyfriend stealing from the perspective of both sisters which gave the characters a more rounded feeling. The story had good pacing, and a interesting plot. I liked it very much, and will look for other books by Janette Rallison. Oh! And I discovered this book from the blog of one of my favorite authors, Shannon Hale! Here is a link to the interview she did with Janette Rallison!

Now I think I am going to go indulge in my current obsession, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I bought the Chosen collection over ebay a few weeks ago, and I am already into season 5. Spike is my favorite =). And I will just leave it at that or I will be drooling all over the keyboard...

Candide

So I have finished reading Candide for history last night. Strange book. One of the characters, Pangloss, says that"Everthing is for the best in this best of all possible worlds" meaning basically that whatever bad stuff happens to you it is always for a good reason. So the death of millions is actually a good thing because those people were put there to die...or some-such idea. The premise of the book is that Voltaire is satirizing this theory, which was created by a guy named Leibniz. In the book Voltaire puts his protagonist Candide through terrible hardships, and has the philosipher Pangloss always reason, "It is for the best". Murder, theft, rape, torture, earthquakes, partial cannibalism...many terrible things happen to the characters in this book. Pangloss sticks to his guns about it being for the best because that is what was meant to happen...I think....but Candide luckily smartens up a bit. Although a more satisfying ending would have had Candide punch Pangloss in the face.

I don't quite get the book yet... I have to read the essays in the back and try to think of soemthing intelligant to put in my 2000 words essay.

Oh Gosh...

Prehaps I should be doing that now instead of later...
Research here I come!

So we had to read this book for Anthropology last semester called A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews, and besides its depressive-ness, it was a really good book. So I was excited when I saw that she had a new book out called The Flying Troutmans.
I was even more excited when my sister got the book for christmas! So while taking a break from reading Candide I snuck into my sister room and borrowed it.


So the really cliche summary is that its about a family and how they cope with there struggles and heartbreaks. Hattie's sister is having another mental breakdown, and so Hattie takes her neice, a hyper-active, arts and crafts doing, purpled haired 11 year old named Thebes, and Logan, her trouble-making angsty, basketball playing, sweety-at-heart nephew on a road trip to find their father. It deals with some tough stuff but does it in such a light hearted tone, it makes the book hard to put down. I found it really easy to get into, and the characters were really fun to get to know.
I also readlly like the cover. The colour scheme and general design matches with that of A Complicated Kindness. And looking at the cover now, I get why there is a bird eating a fish on the cover and having read the story its full of symbolism and stuff. Its like the bird symbolises how life seems to be "eating up" the Troutmans (thats the family...and the bird in my symbolism:P) but ALSO once you read the book you see that the seagull could also represnt Min (the sister with the breakdown) because in one point of the book the reader is told a story about how Min pretends to be a seagull in order to befriend one, and she gets Hattie to pretend to be a dead fish in order to aid her impersonation. And what with Min's constant breakdown's and odd behaviour she could be the seagull that is eating up her families life.
Hmmm.
Deep.

Ambivalence

I have a love/hate relationship with my belt. You see, I love it because it has owls on it, and I adore owls. I hate it because it's buckle is cheap metal and my skin doesn't like cheap metal. I love it because it keep my jeans up 'stead of round my ankles, which is nice.

(here is a picture of the belt in question)

As well, I am a procrastinator. I leave everything till the last minute. I even procrastinate to pee.*(I am not alone in this, check out the facebook group) Sooo, when it can no longer be put off, your belt becomes your worst enemy, as mere seconds can be crucial to your future happiness.

This brings to mind what I learned about Voltaire** on Tuesday in History class, about how he was a very ambivalent person, and had many love/hate relationships with people. His father, his (girlfriend? lover? friend?) Madame Du Chatalet, even when he was imprisoned, he was in jail, but he dined with the Warden often. Why do those two thoughts coincide in my mind?
Leave it to stressful, looming essays to do weird things to your brain.



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*I just realised there is a button to put in hyperlink in the blog writing program thing! I figured this out AFTER going to all the trouble of figuring out how to do it manually. :( *sigh* at least i am a tad bit smarter now :).
**Talking about Voltaire and peeing in the same post?! Outrageous! But actually Voltaire loved to shock and offend, so I think he would be proud to be referenced in this post. :P