waitaminute17

I am trying to drive up traffic at my site (www.faithvsfear.com), which is basically my blog. I write about politics a lot, and I self reflect a lot, and occasionally write about television, sports (baseball or cycling), music and literature. It's what my livejournal probably should be, but isn't. Anyhow, I'm trying to drive up traffic and I think the best way is word of mouth. So, please check it out and tell your friends to check it out.

So, it turns out I'm not giving up on my original blog (http://diewithyouroptionsopen.blogspot.com). In fact I just posted there (for the fourth time this week).

I've decided it will be an interesting test to see what direction my life is headed by which blog I post more often at.

http://diewithyouropitionsopen.blogspot.com sprung from my indecisiveness (i.e. my complete inability to figure out what I want to do with my life)

http://forthethrillofit.blogspot.com began as a place to post pictures and comments about places I've traveled and concerts I've been to (and things like that) and as a result has come to represent kind of the opposite end of the spectrum from We'll Die With Our Options Open....it's the me that basically quit my job (though I've now come back to it) to travel around Europe for a month and a half and went to Mexico for the weekend so I could celebrate a new friend's wedding.

It turns out I'm still a little indecisive (as much as I'm trying not to be), but I've got the impulsive streak as well so I'm keeping both blogs. We'll just have to wait and see which side wins out.

So, as you know I've been in Europe for the past month and a half, at first learning German and now just traveling around. I keep forgetting to post updates here, but really they would only comprise link to this anyway. So there you go, a month and a half worth of updates in one link.

Only 5 minutes of battery life left on my laptop, but if you want to know what I'm up to here on The Continent, check out the travel log.

So, today I finished my final writing assignment as an undergrad student. Studentdom and work and planning for my upcoming trip to The Continent have been occupying most of my time which is why I haven't been posting here much. Truth be told though, I have been posting, just not here. I had a blog, before I came to LJ, and I started posting there again. I now have a second blog for travel and concert related blogging. Check them out and let me know what you think. I'll try to come around more often though, I know you guys must miss me terribly, as I miss all of you.

You Should Get a JD (Juris Doctor)

You're logical, driven, and ruthless. You'd make a mighty fine lawyer.

Today I'm really missing the VM4. I know, it's not like I'm banned from going there, but I've been away so long I'd feel weird jumping back in after such a long absence. Plus the main reason I'm missing it is because I need an outlet to discuss my wildly in appropriate taste in men and I'm not sure that the VM4 is the best place to do that anyway. Perhaps here in my livejournal would be better.

First of all I realized even the sort of appropriate guys I like are a certain type. I never thought I had a type. In fact I always sort of thought that the two guys I really Loved (note the capital L) were nearly the opposite of each other, but this past week I went through some boxes that my mom had brought over when she turned my old room into a TV room. One of these boxes was filled with old letters and notes some of which were from my high school sweetheart (if you could call him that, but that's a long story). After reading some of these old notes I realized that he and my college sweetheart (who's basically the only boyfriend I've had in my adult life) might as well be identical twins for all the things they have in common personality wise. I mean they are different in terms of specific things but their core personality traits (things like competitiveness or lack of it, pessimism vs. optimism, etc.) are exactly the same. If they were to take one of those personality tests that breaks people down into four categories I bet their answers to every question would be identical.

That was a disconcerting discovery. I have a type.

So, back to my inappropriate taste. Another thing that I realized when going through the old letters and notes was that two different guys tried to get me involved with their best friends rather than dumping me in high school. The first was a guy that I wasn't really dating but had sort of an on/off fling with. He thought, it turns out rightly, that I was more girlfriend material and he wasn't interested in that so he actually openly tried to fix me up with his best friend who I eventually fell head over heels in love with but at first I was (I think understandably) upset that this guy I liked was trying to set me up with his best friend. The second was the only guy I actually officially dated in high school, the only one who actually picked me up at my house and took me out places like to dinner and the movies, on actual dates. Most of my interaction with the opposite sex in high school could not be referred to as dating, but this guy actually took me out on dates. Anyhow after about a month of this actual dating this guys best friend started passing me all these flirty notes in chemistry class and I flirted back because I'm a huge flirt, but whenever he tired to ask me out with I'd say I couldn't because I was dating his friend (and I'm not that kind of girl - despite the stories I'm about to tell you). About a week or so after that started the guy I was dating just quit calling me. It took me a while to figure out that he'd been thinking that I'd hook up with his best friend and he could justifiably dump me but when I didn't he was kind of at a loss for what to do so he just never called me again. A year later I ended up somewhat seriously involved with that guys brother. His younger brother who was, according to most people, too young for me. He was only 2 years younger than me, but 2 years seems like a lot when you're a senior in high school and your boyfriend is a sophomore.

So, to recap we've got best friends and brothers so far and those aren't even the really inappropriate ones. In college I went out on a couple of dates with a guy and then fell in love with his roommate. Luckily their other roommate talked the one I liked into asking the other one's permission before he hooked up with me so it was okay but that honestly wouldn't have mattered to me. You're all, by now, aware that I currently have the hots for one of my brothers friends who in addition to being my brother's friend and 6 years older than me, is married.

[Aside - I went to a halloween party this past Saturday with my brother and a bunch of his friends, Married Guy included. A few of us, Married Guy not included, got to talking about what we are like when we get drunk. It's well know that I am a confessional drunk, I say, sometimes wildly inappropriate things when I'm drunk. But I did say something wildly inappropriate the last time I got together with these people and I wasn't drunk then I was just frustrated because they were all talking about how much Married Guy needs to leave his wife and how awful she is and how screwed up he is that he just takes her crap, etc, etc, so I said "he just needs to leave her and date me instead" and I recalled this at the party on Saturday. The girl I was talking to at the party said she remembered it and that she thinks he feels the same way. Of course, she doesn't know that I'm fully aware that he feels the same way because he totally made out with me a while back, and so I say that I'm pretty sure he feels the same way too, which makes he realize that there is some major gossip that she's missing out on and so I tell her, not that we made out, but that the night that we never showed up at a party she invited us to we came to agreement on the idea that he likes me better than his wife. Oy.]

I usually say, in defense of my not having really dated much in the last two years, that the only guys I meet are 21 years old (because I'm back in school right now), but I met a fantastic guy in one of my classes this quarter, he's totally the perfect guy for me...except that he's 20. We agree about tons of stuff and often say the same thing at the same time, but we disagree about enough to make for interesting debates and he's super cute and just perfect for me, but for being 8 years too young.

If they are married, or much younger, or best friends, brothers or roommates of guys I've already dated I'm bound to be attracted to them. This is my fate, to be constantly attracted to the most inappropriate guys possible.

News:

My change of major (to English) finally came through, as did my "graduating senior" designation so I will get top registration priority for classes next quarter and, barring any huge incident, I will be graduating in June.

I'm going to do a study abroad program spring quarter. I'll be taking German classes at the Goethe Institut in Munich. I'm planning to do the super intensive course which is in two week incriments for 8 hours a day. I don't know how many of them I'll need to take to complete my foreign language requirement for graduation. My guess would be that the Goethe Institut units corespond to total class hours (it's 80 units for two weeks of super intensive class) which would mean that one two week course would actually be more than I need since I only need 5 more creidts and the UW credits correspond to weekly hours of class in a 10 week quarter (making 5 credits a total of 50 hours of class in a quarter). Anyhow I'm going to take at least 4 weeks of class (maybe 6 weeks) even if I only need 2 weeks. Also, my best friend is coming at the end of April so we can celebrate our birthdays together (her's is April 30th mine is May 17th). Plus, we're going to London and about 20 of her friends from high school and Oxford are renting a big country house for a week so we're going to do that. Even if I do 6 weeks of classes I'll still have 6 weeks to just travel around Europe and visit friends and family in the UK, Germany, Switzerland and Italy before I have to be back for Graduation on June 9th.

My dad is doing really well, he's seems to be healing really fast and the doctor is pretty confident that they cancer hadn't spread so they got it all when they removed his kidney.

And that's all the news I have to report.

Happy Birthday kalbear and chaotic4life!

I went to see The Departed last night and now I'm totally angry at the critics again. First they try to tell me that 30 Rock is better than Studio 60 and then they try to tell me that Leonardo Dicaprio is the weak link in The Departed. I've read a couple of reviews of The Departed and their comments about Dicaprio's acting range from him being really good but not nearly as good as Nicholson and Damon to him bringing those two down. Dicaprio steals every scene he's in. Jack Nicholson does what he does in every movie. I know I may be alone in this view, but he's totally a one trick pony. He's great, don't get me wrong, but he's totally type cast and whenever his boundries get pushed you can tell he's struggling with it. The only time I ever saw him exhibit anything resembling range as an actor was in As Good as it Gets and even then there were some major elements of that character that matched up with his typical characters. Matt Damon was really good, is always really good, but this character in The Departed, kept reminding me of Bourne. Dicaprio pushes himself, he takes parts that aren't like anything else he's played before and every time he nails it. I hate to keep harping on the idea of emotional resonance but Dicaprio resonates in The Departed.

Critics don't know anything.

I haven't been online much lately which theoretically should mean I've been out in the world actually doing things, but in reality it has only somewhat meant that.

Here's an update on me before I get into my main focus, television:

( A month in the life of me... )

And now on to the main event, television.

I watched the premiere of 30 Rock this morning. I know that 30 Rock and Studio 60 invite a lot of comparisons and because I'm a television buff (and a Tina Fey fan and an Aaron Sorkin fan) I've been reading all of them for the past month or so. Almost universally the critics I've read think 30 Rock is the better show and after seeing the pilot I'm utterly astounded. If it weren't created by and starring Tina Fey I wouldn't even give it a second chance, in fact I wouldn't have even finished watching the pilot. It was awful, unfunny, uninteresting, and stiff. Studio 60 has excited me from the first minute, and while I am willing to indulge arguments about the writing of the pilot (or first couple of episodes), especially the arguments about the sketches from the show within the show, both the fact that they didn't show enough of them and that the ones that they did show weren't funny enough, I simply can't see even the smallest bit of merit in any argument that says 30 Rock is a funnier, or better in any way, show. The cast of Studio 60 has an amazing chemistry and watching that show makes me feel something. I know it is harder with sitcoms to infuse them with emotion because there is so much focus on the jokes, but How I Met Your Mother manages to do it, The Class manages it, The Office and My Name is Earl both manage it and all of those shows manage to be funnier than 30 Rock and have moments of emotional resonance. I'm hesitant to put it all on the actors because I think, to some extent, the emotion has to be there in the writing (or at least the writing has to create the possibility for emotional resonance), but really good actors, who have a really great chemistry with each other are pretty essential to having moments that resonate on an emotional level and 30 Rock just doesn't do it. I'm going to keep watching it because I love Tina Fey and I hope she can step it up, but I don't have a lot of faith after that pilot.

New shows that I do like: Six Degrees, Shark, Brothers and Sisters, The Nine, Studio 60, The Class, and Heros. If you have new shows that you think I should be watching, leave a comment and let me know.

Some of my favorite television moments so far this season:

- Lily and Marshall's angry hook up in the bathroom at brunch with Ted's parents. (How I Met Your Mother)
- Rory learning about sending dirty text messages and then Logan telling her that she didn't need a book for it. (Gilmore Girls)
- Matt and Harriet's argument about the baseball bat. (Studio 60)
- Danny "Nice rack by the way, tell Jordan I'm not 15" (Studio 60)
- Dessert Sushi - in fact the whole asian makeover of Lorelai's house (Gilmore Girls)
- The meeting of Wallace and Piz (Veronica Mars)
- Ethan telling his ex fiance that she's making the breakup a lot easier on him then slamming the door in her face (The Class)
- Harriet's Holly Hunter impression (Studio 60)

Yes, yes, my television viewing life is now complete. Aaron Sorkin is back making good TV and season three of Veronica Mars finally premiered.

I was worried, I mean really worried about Veronica Mars this year. I was concerned that the new 3 mystery per season plan would make the episodes too packed with mystery details to deal much with character arch. I know this was a paranoid fear on my part. I mean, I'm not completely unfamiliar with Rob Thomas' other work so I know that he's pretty into writing three dimensional characters who have more purpose in a story than to just move the plot along, but I was worried anyway because I have to worry about something or I'm not me.

( Veronica Mars Season 3 Premiere - including baseless speculation )

I'm clearly way to invested in this show.

Okay, I do have little crush on Ron Livingston so I may be a little biased but I'm really loving the new show Standoff. It's very cinematic which a lot of shows these days seem to be attempting (I'm sure the CSI franchise would like to think they've not only perfected it but started the trend though I'm not sure I'd agree on either account). I think the character arcs should prove interesting. On the surface level the characters all fit the profile more of heroes than any of them seem to be a protagonist. It's interesting to me how they manage to get in a few minutes of each episode that move along the character arc even though each episode is primarily focused on the internal episode arc. It will be interesting to see which characters begin to stand out. I, of course, think Livingston's character is the most interesting and not just because I like to look at him.

I'm watching Justice too, but I'm not enjoying it nearly as much. It's actually kind of frustrating to watch because the acting is so great but the characters are so one dimensional. To see the potential there without the follow through is hard on my delicate television viewing sensibilities.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is probably going to be my favorite new show which shouldn't surprise anyone who knows me. Anything Aaron Sorkin does I'm probably going to like. I will probably find it even more annoying this time around when they re-use dialog and story lines from Sports Night and The West Wing, but I wont let that interfere too much with my enjoyment. The speculation about how close the correlation really is between the Matt/Danny characters and their relationship to Sorkin and Tommy Schlame will be fun. Mostly though the idea of Sorkin writing combined with Matthew Perry, Amanda Peet, Stephen Webber, and Bradley Whitford makes me a little bit giddy. The pilot made me happy. It wasn't quite what I know Aaron Sorkin is capable of, but for a pilot it was actually pretty spectacular. I tend to not enjoy the exposition and character development that are inherently necessary in a television pilot and this wasn't an exception, but it was better executed than pilots often are.

I'm giving Men in Trees a chance also, mostly because nothing else even remotely worth watching is on Friday nights. The pilot wasn't exceptionally annoying and if it manages to avoid too many Northern Exposure parallels it should be enjoyable though I doubt it will be one of the shows I sight when I make my patented arguments in favor of television.

Due to rearrangement in schedules and the fact that I switched DVR companies thus allowing me to record two shows at a time I can now watch Bones and House both of which were shows I had to skip last year because they conflicted with other shows I had to watch. House is quickly becoming one of my favorite shows and Bones is not disappointing either.

I'm even more excited about some of the returning shows. Last nights premiere of How I Met Your Mother didn't disappoint though Two and a Half Men seems to be wearing a bit thin, to me. There is still a lot of funny there but mostly in the form of one liners and even those are getting a little old because, while the specifics may change, the jokes are all pretty much the same. Next week though, Gilmore Girls premieres and my television viewing life will be complete.

In short: Watch TV, it'll be good for you.

Okay it's time for some more shameless plugs from me.

You all know my new cousin-in-law is in a band (Metric) and I finally got to see them play last night at Bumbershoot. It was a great show. Unfortunately most, if not all, of my f-list won't get a chance to see them on their current tour as the remainder of their current schedule is in Canada. However, if you live in London, ON, Edmonton, AB, Halifax, NS, or Fredericton, NB, you are in luck. Definitely go see them if you get the chance.

I ran into a guy I went to high school with on Sunday night and it turns out he is in a band as well and they are about to head out on a tour down the west coast. They are playing tonight in Seattle (at the Sunset) and then they head out. I know I've got at least one f-lister in the Portland area (they play Holocene tomorrow and at The Know on 9/17) and a couple f-listers in the Bay Area (they play at The Make-Out Room in San Francisco on 9/13) and a few of you in LA (where they play at rest and relaxation on 9/11 and The Knitting Factory on 9/12). They're called Sneaky Thieves and you can find their whole schedule at their website, they are playing several other towns in WA, OR and CA (Salem, Ashland, Santa Cruz, Ventura, Davis, etc).

Metric has MP3s on their website, so if you've never heard their stuff check it out. Sneaky Thieves don't have any samples up on their website yet but they do have some on their myspace page.

Yes I've gave this post a title that's quoted from Reality Bites, but it really won't be that depressing I promise. To prove it I'll start with a weird dream I had last night which had a member of my f-list in it:

( Click here to find out who )

( High school reunion, The Who and other things you probably couldn't care less about )

( The sad news )

( The good news )

And now I'm going to go home and get some sleep because I have to get up at 5:30AM to come in early to work because they have me working split shifts this week. Only three more days of this though and then 4 DAY WEEKEND!!!!!

So, I've been in a melancholy mood lately, for the past 5 months really. I've had a lot of personal crap going on (that I've rehashed pretty fully both here and at TWoP), but also, I'm burning out on work and school and I think that switching from full time work and part time school to full time school and part time work just served to highlight how burnt out I am rather than to alleviate it. I'm scheduled to take the GRE in a couple weeks and I should be already working on applications for grad school. I should be getting together letters of recommendation and writing essays, but I just can't bring myself to do those things.

Anyhow, I'm exhausted and I needed a break, which I got this past weekend. I left my place at 8:30AM on Friday and got bak at 12:30AM on Sunday (or technically Monday morning) and of those 64 hours I spent 8 in airports, 10 on the road and 4 in the air, but I managed to have some fun too and I think I've recovered sufficiently to relay the events of my weekend.

I got to SeaTac airport 2 hours early for my flight and it took me 15 mintes to check my baggage and get through security leaving an hour and 45 minutes to sit in the airport. Good times.

I hate flying, it makes me (sometimes literally) sick, so I take dramamine which I'm convinced is purely a sedative not actual motion sickness medication because all it does is put me directly to sleep, which works just as well I guess.

My flight arrived in Oakland at about 1:30PM, but I didn't get to my hotel until 3:30PM leaving me just enough time to shower and change before leaving to meet spectralbovine. I managed to get myself lost between the BART and the street, but that's what cell phones are for and in no time we were enjoying delicious gyros.

After gyros there was cake and then theater...but what I'm telling you this for, you probably already read all about it on his journal. I will say that the play was one of the best plays I've seen in a long while. It was a modern, comic retelling of the story of Perseus loaded with pop culture references. It was hillarious. I did ask the star of the show for his autograph, but he'd just said that someone had recognized him and not asked for his autograph so I had to rectify that and the program had a blank page in it anyway which couldn't possibly have served any other purpose. Anyhow, he was cool, and how often do you get to have the star of a fantastic play call you a nerd. Once in a lifetime experience if you ask me. All in all it was a pretty great night.

The next day I had my cousin's wedding to attend. Getting there was both frusterating and facinating. The wedding was about half an hour outside of Willits, CA, which is about 3-4 hours north of Oakland depending on traffic, which we hit lots of. The drive is pretty amazingly beautiful though (it's through wine country) so I didn't mind so much. I did sort of wish that I didn't have anywhere to be so I could have stopped along the way and enjoyed wine country a little bit.

My cousin's wedding was one of the best weddings I've ever been to. It was held at this farm/camp ground way up in the hills of northern California. The grounds of this place were fantastic. They grew everything from grapes to pumpkins to kiwis in the garden and they had sheep and chickens and two fish ponds. The ceremony was short but really beautiful and incorporated all sorts of different wedding traditions. My cousin wore our grandmothers wedding dress and she looked georgeous. Both she and my new cousin-in-law couldn't get through their vows (which they wrote themselves) without crying. They both seemed so happy.

The dinner was delicious in a way that only a vegetarian meal catered at an organic farm can be because the ingredients are so good and so fresh. At dinner my brother and I ended up sitting by all the music people (as I like to call them). My new cousin-in-law is the drummer for Metric and my brother and I were seated next to the guitar player and singer from the band and their manager and producer (at least I think it was the producer) who aparently doesn't eat but talked a lot while the rest of us ate and made the dinner conversation quite interesting. After dinner I got a chance to catch up with my other cousin who's been living in Montreal (illegally....shhhh) and hasn't come back to the states much to visit. I've missed him, both of them (my cousins) actually, a lot. The cousin that got married is the closest cousin in age to me on either side of my family, she's 2 months older than me and her brother is the my second closest cousin but since going off to college we haven't all kept in touch as much as we used to.

Getting back from the wedding was even more of a logistical nightmare than getting there had been, but the wedding made that all worth it (even the 5 hours I spent in the Oakland airport on Sunday afternoon).

So, while it might have been a hectic couple of days and maybe not quite the serene break I needed to renew my spirit and zest for life I wouldn't trade it for anything. It was a great trip.

I'm back from a too short and too hectic visit to the Bay Area. I had a great time, but I wished I could have stayed longer. My cousin's wedding was the best wedding I think I've ever been to. And you should all support my new cousin-in-law's band Metric. Buy their CDs, go see their shows...in fact if any of my f-listers are going to be in the Seattle area on Labor Day (September 4th), they are playing at Bumbershoot.

Thanks to...half my flist for this meme.

01. Who is your best friend? Wallace Fennell (Veronica Mars), he pretty much rules the best friend category.

02. Who is your mother? Lorelai Gilmore (Gilmore Girls), I have a very Rory/Lorelai type relationship with my mom so this is the only logical choice.

03. Who is your father? Keith Mars (Veronica Mars), I like a dad that is always there for you no matter what you need, be it a ride to school or taser. My dad is always there for me, though luckily I've never had need of a taser.

04. Who is your older sibling? Luke Danes (Gilmore Girls), I know, very Oedipal since Lorelai is my mother, but we have to look past that for a second. Luke is very crumudgeonly (like my actual brother), but he really cares about people, at least the people he really cares about. He helps his sister out in every way he can. He's a really good big brother, and a lot like my actual big brother.

Younger sibling?Natalie Hurley (Sports Night), This was tough for me because I don't actually have a youger sibling in real life so I have no point of reference, but I always wanted a sister and Natalie would be a great one I think, she's so naieve in so many ways that a big sister could help her out with, and yet she's also kind of wise about some things, it would be just the type of sisterly realationship I always wanted, kind of like the relationship she has with Dana.

05. Who is your prom date? Dr. John "JD" Dorian (Scrubs), cute but kind of dorky and totally fun, again, much like my actual prom date was.

06. Who do you have a no-strings-attached one-night stand with? Spike (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), he's hot but also everything he says sounds like a come on, even the most trivial and mundane things he says sound like come ons, maybe it's a little bit the accent, but he also has a quality about him that just screams sex. Although, I'd prefer more than one night, maybe a no-strings-attached several week long fling

07. Who do you date for a year or two? Dan Rydell (Sports Night), he's a handsome television star, he'd take me the the symphony and to baseball games and to rock concerts and I bet he'd also be perfectly happy to stay home and order in food and watch movies or something, he'd be a great boyfriend, but I think the crazy might make him unlikely to be a long haul boyfriend, but he could do a couple years.

08. Who do you marry? Logan Huntzberger (Gilmore Girls), I have no reason for this other than I'm totally in love with Logan. I think he's smart and funny and good looking and nice, and I think that while he has some issues committing to things (and people) that once he does commit he'll do it all the way not just a little bit. I have some back up choices in this category because it was a hard choice...Jim Halpert (The Office) and Sam (The Loop).

09. Who is your boss? Michael Bluth (Arrested Development), I don't think this requires any explaination.

10. Who is/are your next door neighbor(s)? Xander Harris (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), firstly because having the slayer's BFF living next door makes for safety, secondly becuase Xander's awesome and thirdly because Spike might come and stay with him thus facilitating my one-night stand. If not Xander than Barney Stinson (How I Met Your Mother) becuase of his supreme awesomeness.

HA! kalbear, thanks for this! I think you will be amused with the results I got.

You scored as II - The High Priestess. The High Priestess is a card of intuition, instinct and hidden knowledge. She knows all your secrets, you can hide nothing from her. Yet you will never know the secrets she herself protects.If well aspected in a Tarot spread, this card can indicate the use of intuition to solve problems; trust to your instincts. If badly aspected, it can mean suppression and ignoring of such instincts - following your head at the expense of your heart. </td> II - The High Priestess 94% III - The Empress 81% XIX: The Sun 75% XI: Justice 63% XIII: Death 63% XVI: The Tower 56% VIII - Strength 56% VI: The Lovers 50% I - Magician 44% XV: The Devil 44% IV - The Emperor 38% 0 - The Fool 38% X - Wheel of Fortune 31% Which Major Arcana Tarot Card Are You? created with QuizFarm.com

Thanks, sousrature, this was fun.

You Are: 20% Dog, 80% Cat

You are are almost exactly like a cat. You're intelligent, independent, and set on getting your way. And there's no way you're going to fetch a paper for anyone!