A note on romance.

Yesterday for my dear friend Sarah's birthday, we went out to see Leap Year (a typical chick-flic, girly movie, romantic comedy, however you chose to describe the genre). It was adorable, romantic, funny, predictable, everything I expected and enjoyed. After the movie, Sarah and I were talking about how these movies have come to raise our expectations for real life. They've set the bar for romance, they've made us believe that what we see on screen is true love, and anything less is nothing.

Later, someone brought to my attention that that kind of romance is not realistic. I felt a little bummed, because I knew they were right. But after I thought about it for a while, I changed my mind. Why does romance have to be unrealistic? Of course it's every girls dream to have a Disney romance, find your one true love, who helps you out, blah blah blah, and everyone lives happily ever after. But who said it couldn't happen? I could do without the singing birds, and the villan perhaps.

Why not?

Why can't people do selfless acts, just to show they care?

Who said we can't kiss in the rain?

What the hell happened to chivalry?

Are we not allowed to leave sweet notes to each other?

Why can't there be candles at dinner tonight?

Is it hard to say "you're beautiful" every once in a while?

Why is romance so unrealistic??

Maybe I just need attention.

Regardless, I'm going to make it a personal goal to live my idealistic romantic life. I'm gonna do it. Just watch me. Watch me be unrealistic.

Oh Academia, How I Love Thee.

I love school!!

I really do.

I love the structure, learning new things every day, being surrounded by others who thrive in the academia, all of it. Ok, maybe not all. I could do without having to write papers, or staying up late at night to study, or having to take incredibly hard tests (alright, maybe I love these things too... What of it?).

After the holidays, I realized it was time to go back to school when I spent my monday doing the following:

-Cleaning the apartment

-Running errands around town

-Straightening my hair (which takes like 1+ hour)

-Reading for fun (!!)

-Finding more things to clean

-Playing videogames

-Playing boardgames

-Anything to keep boredom as far away as possible...

And still I got bored. Go figure.

So I was very much relieved to have school start again. I did well in my classes last quarter, so I've been all psyched up for this quarter. I have super interesting classes, which are also quite challenging, as well as a less interesting class, which creates the challenge to stay focused during lecture and actually pay attention. Hopefully I'll do as well this quarter as last, maybe even better! And I know if I apply myself and stay focused, that shouldn't be a problem.

In other news, I've been quite knitty lately. I managed to pick it up pretty fast! I started like a year ago doing the basics, nothing fancy, and then dropped it after a few months and forgot about it. But then last quarter I decided to pick it up as a distraction from school, and realized I'm not half bad. So far I've finished a long scarf for Mia (started over a year ago), two headband/ear warmers (both failed, too big), a pair of mittens for Stoo (success!!!), and now I've started a pair of arm warmers for my roommate Ariel (complete with fancy cables (the twisty looking awesomeness)). This summer I tried sewing a skirt, and failed. I'm no seamstress, turns out. So I was excited to find that I actually can be crafty! Moral of the story: be expecting knit gifts from me for a while :)

That's it for now folks.

Mittens!