2009

Oh, the might of this past year.  I figure that I’ll share some of it with you.

I…

• Graduated from my high school with a 3.98 GPA.
• Became the first member of my mum’s family to go straight from high school into university.
• Got my first car.
• And I had my first break-down two days later.
• Filmed two zombie movies with my friends.
• Became a vegetarian.
• Lost some friends.
• And gained many more.
• Was somehow crowned as Prom Queen.
• Attended a Star Wars themed wedding.
• Made it through my last high school play of Alice in Wonderland.
• Learned the value of a good teacher and professor.
• Decided that I’ll move to New York and own a crappy apartment with a friend after graduation from university.
• Finally started reading Lord of the Rings.
• Started painting a series of landscapes.
• Learned new sewing techniques and became the seamstress of my friends.
• Continued new traditions with the fourth annual trip to Elephant Rocks and the third annual Gingerbread House Fest.
• Turned 18 and became a legit adult.
• Developed a fond appreciation of hot tea.
• Managed to host a full Tri-County convention for Student Council.  Who knew Stuco president would be so much work?
• Switched over to soy milk.
• Added another 2000 songs to my ever-growing iTunes.
• Became aware of MBTI personality profiling and its uses in life.
• Further became aware that some people were not worth the effort, not because of personality clashes, but because of character clashes.
• Realised how similar my music tastes are to some of my friends and how totally different they were to others.
• Adopted a bamboo plant and a bonsai tree.  They are now happily married and named Barb and Bill, respectively.
• Realised that I prefer small groups to large.
• Discovered that some of my friends were very mature, and I’ve stayed in touch with them much more easily than the others.
• Learned to appreciate early mornings, open windows, and light rain.
• Travelled to Washington D.C. for the first time with my choir.
• Threw up twice because of antibiotics that I’m allergic to.
• Learned the joys of European fashion and thrift stores.
• Was let down by my family on multiple occasions.
• Thanked God every time I saw my grandparents.
• Learned that some people can surprise you in amazing ways, and that you’ll love them even more for those unique qualities.
• Discovered the joys of watching Moulin Rouge over and over again.
• Changed the style that I dressed as I felt more mature.
• Practically changed my religion.
• Met a professional male model, who in turn became one of my best friends.
• And I realised that I will miss him dearly when he’s modelling next semester instead of studying psychology with me.

Also…

• My grandma was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, even after having never smoked in her life.
• She has also lived past any previous expectations and is enjoying each day.
• Truman State University became my new home in August.
• My mum bought a cat.
• My mum also nearly caused a divorce because of said cat.
• This cat became one of my new best-friends.  Qat = love.

Here are some things I discovered throughout the year that I’d like to share with you:

Books:

• Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkein
• Ishmael, Daniel Quinn
• Skinny Bitch, Kim Barnoin and Tori Freedman
• French Women Don’t Get Fat, Mireille Guilliano
• Six Records of a Floating Life, Shen Fu
• All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque

Music:

• Andrew Bird
• Barcelona
• Beirut
• Owl City
• Tchaikovsky
• Emiliana Torrini
• Innerpartysystem
• The Strokes
• Vampire Weekend
• Yelle

Films:

• Love Actually
• Watching the Detectives
• Moulin Rouge
• Burn After Reading
• Kingdom of Heaven

This has been a year of discovery about the ins and outs of my personality and viewpoints and has been a launching point into maturity and being an adult.  I’ve learned so much, but I’m not finished.  So, I’ll see you next year with a whole new list of good times, bad times, and everything that I’ve learned along the way.

Happy 2009!  And now, Happy 2010!

I’ll leave you with some highlights from this year.

Book Store Fun

Student Council Tri-County

Prom Queen

Alice in Wonderland play

Washington D.C. Trip

Visiting Truman

Dressing up for the Harry Potter premier at midnight

Adventures on Main Street

Ramalama, Zombie Video

Truman Football

Campus Adventuring

Meaningful Photography…?

Classy Bitches Night

Snow Fort Extravaganza

Enjoy the new year,

Missi

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Avatar Review

Last night, my friends and I got together from our hectic lives at university to see the new Avatar film. And, let me tell you, I was thinking of all kinds of wonderful things to write about it the entire time that I watched it. For starters, it had a lot of your average film-plot, but it was laid out quite nicely. Not to mention that the cinematography was absolutely brilliant. So, here’s my lovely review of Avatar. I’ll shy away from any spoilers until the end, and they will be clearly labelled. No worries.

The thing I liked the most about it was that, even though it was filled with your character clichés, it wasn’t overly done. Yes, you had your chosen one, your rebel, your INTJ, your hard-core bad guy that just wouldn’t die, your weasel, your nerdy guy, and even your love-interest who gets mad half-way through. But, each were portrayed very nicely. So, I give a big thumbs up to all of the characters, especially to the character of Grace whom I found quite refreshing (not to mention that she was a red-headed INTJ. How can I not be happy?).

The dialogue in the film is a little off during the first ten minutes or so, but I feel like it gets a lot better from there.  It has to explain a lot of back story since it takes place in the future, and that’s understandable.  Once they get past that, though, things can get less corny by means of what’s said.  Also, if you’re a language buff, you may be very interested in the alien language used during the film.  It was completely crafted by the creators and a linguist, and it sounds very beautiful.  It may never become as great as the language used in Star Trek or anything, but you may see people become very interested in trying to learn phrases from the language.

That, or maybe you’ll  juts appreciate the accent of the aliens when they speak English.

I’ve heard a lot of negative things about the plot, and I’d just like to tell you that most of those complaints are completely unwarranted. Yes, the plot is recognisable. But there are only about seven plots in the world to use anyway, so that’s not suprising. And, yes, you could often tell what was going to happen, but it was never to the point where you could get angry just because you called that. I liked the plot just fine. A nice save-the-world mentality.

Not to mention that it was kind enough to include a moral: All humans are complete dumb-arses. I feel like that’s a general principle in most films, including those that try to act against that, but it was highlighted in this film on several occasions. The humans make the wrong decisions, forever and for always.  And you will not be rooting for the humans.  Unless you’re a business executive, and still, there’s room for shying away from the humans in this film.

Something I thought was interesting during Avatar, though, was how much it reminded me of Pocahontas. Hell, I even called the tribal leader Chief Powhatan in lack of a better name. But it had its Disney version Pocahontas vibes that I personally enjoyed. In fact, if you were to think about other films and how pieces of them compare to Avatar, here’s what I’d tell you: Imagine Pocahontas meets Chronicles of Narnia. Got that? Now add copious amounts of drugs. Now, mix in some Star Wars, mostly the fighting from the original three. Once you’ve shaken that up a bit, add some of the epic battle scenes and especially Aragorn’s epic speech from Lord of the Rings. Once you’ve got all of those mixed together, you get something vaguely like Avatar, but you’re still never going to get close to it. You see, no other film has quite compared to this, not only because of the Aliens, but also because of the complexities of the languages, cultures, and religion.

But again, major Pocahontas vibes. I thought they’d start singing ‘Colour of the Wind’ at some point.  Instead, our chosen one was just called an idiot.  Same, same, but different.

And the cinematography really was brilliant.  It wasn’t the type of brilliant to make you draw breath at the start of each scene, but it was very rewarding to just sit there and view the colours and clear dimensions.  Much of the world brought to life appear almost like fibre-optics, and the colours used in the lights are intense and beautifully created.  Many scenes are completely computer generated, but for once, you’ll nearly forget that and start thinking about where on Earth this was filmed… but it wasn’t.  The filming also had a nearly 3-D effect, but without making me feeling car-sick.  Thank goodness.

And, for everyone wondering about the computer generated characters (which basically make up half of the movie), it was brilliantly done.  I’d read a review somewhere that said the makers of the film weren’t interested in actually having it done until they saw that computer generated characters could hold their own.  Well, they had seen the character Gollum in Lord of the Rings, and supposedly that changed their minds.  But, let me tell you, Gollum doesn’t even come close to how nicely done these alien creatures (and alien animals, as well) were portrayed.  Finally, we have characters that can express emotions, be shown in full interaction with humans, and move around without it looking off.  When they cry, it looks legit.  Just to put that out there.

Now, Avatar isn’t my favourite film in the world (that spot is still reserved for Lord of the Rings), but I really don’t have too many complaints.  Some people may have called for more battle and more gore, but I was fine without it.  (As someone who spent more than half of Final Destination 4 either outside of the theatre or with her eyes closed, it was nice not to have to shy away from the screen.)

But, all in all, great film, and I highly recommend seeing it.  If you can get yourself to a theatre, do it, because it’s going to look much better from a fifty foot screen than from your home screen on DVD.  It was finally a film that was worth the ten dollars.

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Merry Christmas!

From everyone here at Missi’s World (AKA: Missi and Qat), we wish you a very merry Christmas, happy holidays, and joyous season.

Make it a great time with plenty of celebration, religious or not. :)

And if you are at all interested, here is the card my mum sent out for Christmas.  And, yes, it is my dog, Teddy.  He’s simply a-DOG-able.

“Well, the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful…”

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Hind Sight

There’s a saying somewhere that says, “Hind sight is always 20-20”, and I’m sure we’ve all taken it as meaning that everything makes sense once you look back on it.  But, I’ve come to disagree over the past semester.  Just how it’s said that there are some things that you can’t learn from text books, my opinion differs.  For a matter of fact, hind sight can’t tell you everything you wanted to know, but you can most certainly get help in figuring out these things from a text book.

It’s just that said event must be analysed in order to be understood, and this text book must be for psychology.

Yes, get ready for another psychological analysis.  It will be lengthy, but you can skip the bits about my life history.  They have details that I will recall later, but some of it has been talked about before.

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House Keeping

Could it be what we need is a backbone?  Could it be what we need is a backbone?  We want to believe that we tried.  Falling asleep is the weight of their eyes.  Slips away.

-“Spineless”, Jealousy Curve

I feel that I should leave you with songs that I enjoy.  Call it the gift of musical knowledge.

Finals week has been going well; in fact, I’d be willing to say that it has been the most enjoyable week of university thus far.  Each night, the cafeteria serves doughnuts and sweet cakes with coffee and tea.  My entire house will get together and try to seat fourteen of us at one circular table.  We end up sitting on each others laps and sharing chairs so that we can all be together, and it is well worth it.

The finals themselves haven’t been too difficult.  Yes, I spent much of the weekend and days past studying, but with plenty of breaks and times to visit with the friends that I will not see for a while.  There are two people in my house that I am particularly close to.  One left yesterday, and the other will not be coming back next semester because (get this) he’s going to Paris, Milan, London, and New York to do modelling work.  Remember that link I posted a while ago of the modelling pictures by my friend Aaron?  Well, this is him.  He was recently signed with NEXT New York, and they’re sending him to Europe for two months or so next semester.  So, he’s skipping out on second semester and will be back in the fall.  I’m so proud of him, and he’ll have a lovely time.  But I will miss him very much.  Much more than he’ll know.

Meanwhile in life, though, I’ve been reading, crocheting hats, and facing the fact that I will be back at home for three weeks.  I was writing in my diary about going home, and I mentioned that I feel like Harry Potter whenever he has to go back to the Dursleys for the summer.  That is exactly how I feel.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love my friends back home and my family, but I simply can’t be at home for extended periods of time.  My bed is uncomfortable there, there’s so much noise, cat and dog fur clings to everything (even though I love them, it’s hard to look nice), and my family just…. well, we’re very different people.  It’s difficult for me to be myself around them or to talk to them about anything that interests me.  I try to talk about politics, but they only watch Fox News and are brainwashed by singular media (which, as a note, I collect my news from BBC each day, NPR, and random news stories and newspapers.  I prefer not to watch televised news or get anything from a single source).  I try to talk about crafting, but my mum doesn’t understand my version of style or crafts or painting.  I try to talk about current events, but their ignorance and closed-minded thinking shines through.  I love them; I just can’t be with them all of the time.

Remember, I’m very introverted, too.  My mum is very extroverted.  She needs to constantly be around me in order to feel close and wants me out in the living room and kitchen talking with her and watching the same television shows (which, mind you, are full of bias or sad looking animals.  And, seeing as how I lack empathy, that doesn’t quite work for me).  She doesn’t understand that, not only do I not need to talk to someone in order to feel close to them, but I would rather stay in my room and not talk at all if there is no reason to.  It’s something that she will never understand, as extroverts never understand introverts.  Luckily, I understand her, and I try (even though it kills me) to appease her and make her feel loved.  It’s the least I can do, and at the same time, the very most.

Yes, I fully admit that I’m a bitch, and a cold-hearted one at that.

Meanwhile in life, though, I saw The Princess and the Frog with my dorm-house yesterday, and it was quite enjoyable.  I may or may not write a review for it in the near future.  I’m also currently reading “French Women Don’t Get Fat” by Mireille Guiliano.  Though I haven’t finished it yet, I recommend it if you are looking into health books.  And, remember, health.  Not diet.  I don’t play into diet books or the like, as I think they’re total rubbish.  If you want to lose weight, push that our of your mind and try to get healthy instead.  After all, weight loss is only a side-effect of being healthy.  Once I finish the book, I’ll write a real review on it, as well.

Wow, one paragraph, and I’ve already promised to write two reviews.  While I’m at it, I may as well write a review for some music or something, though I think I’ll leave you with another musical quote instead.  And, should you catch an interest, that would be wonderful.

I hate to see a friend of mine,

Laughing out loud when she’s crying inside,

But you’ve got your pride.

-“Jealous of the Moon”, Nickel Creek

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Globalisation

For my history final, I have to write a paper about globalisation, and it ended up being an incredibly enjoyable experience to write it out tonight.  I just hope that I’ll be able to remember all of it for this morning’s final (it is 2.30 in the morning, after all) since it has to be hand-written in class.  Anyway, enjoy.

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Copious Amounts of Caffeine

I’ve drained a cup of pomegranate tea and eaten a tofu riblet sandwich.  My shower was nice this morning, and I even dressed myself well.  So, I’m ready, completely ready.

And yet, I’m sitting at my desk in front of an entire chapter of psychology reading, unfinished crochet hats meant as Christmas gifts, and a pile of things needing to be set away.

So, I turn up the song by Beirut coming from my laptop and try to breathe, fixing my pink scarf as I do so and adjusting my short skirt.  Exhale.  Inhale.  There isn’t an order.

I stare down at my psychology text book again.  The section of the chapter is entitled “Obedience”.  I roll my eyes and exhale again, rereading the first sentence for the third time.  “There is a difference between the concepts of compliance, which is agreeing to change one’s behaviour because someone else asks for the change, and obedience, which is changing one’s behaviour at the direct order of an authority figure.”  I reread it again.  Four times, now.

And with another exhale, I neglect the text book, looking back up to the laptop screen, with a shining website about Copenhagen Street Style.  My favourite.  I smile and breathe again, knowing that there is still plenty of time to read.  There just isn’t plenty of time to live.  So I make my decision.

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Catherine and Wendy

Catherine and Wendy are gallivanting around the room, forgetting that Catherine has a room-mate.  They fix each other’s hair, play unpleasant music, and spread the smell of burning chemicals in the room with each passing of the curling iron over oiled locks.  Loraine sits in her bed, high above them, waiting for the time to herself.  But this time will not come for a while, so she drowns out the noise and smell the best she can.  A book lies on her lap along with a list of things to be fixed.  This is where she stays, this is what she does.  In time, she will be given the room in order to sit and think through the things that are bothering her.  In time, she may even get a room to herself for the entire year, with the women of the society pushed to the back of her mind while out of sight.  But these are muses of hers, used to keep her mind off of Catherine and Wendy’s laughing and the smells of burning locks being curled into unnatural ringlets.

Loraine doesn’t know how Mary and Wendy can live together.  They are so different from one another.  But, ironically, Wendy joins Loraine’s room-mate, Catherine, as friends while Loraine and Mary seek each other out.

“How interesting that we should be changing room-mates like this.  Almost like a swap,” Loraine mentions to Mary at breakfast.

“Yes, well,” Mary responds, “Those of similar personalities will often join one another.”

And they continue on, eating their boiled eggs and toast in comfortable silence.

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Winter Wonderland

The two inches of snow lied on the ground pathetically as small drops of freezing rain crystallised over it, creating a glistening shell.  Each drop left another icicle on the metal railings leading from the dorms and yet another slick spot on the concrete leading to OP.  We checked the weather forcast once again: thirty degrees but with freezing rain.

“If it were a few degrees cooler, we could be getting six inches of snow right now,” we complained.  But the snow would come, along with the scheduled blizzard.

That evening, the rain began to turn into sleet and then into small snow flakes in the windless night.  Our house ran outside, bundled up for the cold temperature, and headed out to the quad for a snowball fight.  But, instead of a fight, we began to build snow men, run around, greet others who would join us.  The night time centre of the university became alive with laughing, flying snow, and the soft swirl of flakes passing by lamplight.

We travelled past the snowman that we had built and went to the trees near the edge of the quad.  Slowly, we managed to climb the ice and snow covered trees to get a better view of the falling snow.  And, after resting, I wandered to the bushes, all the while following rabbit tracks left in the snow.  At the edge of the bushes, I found a tree, a tree with a tiny crack that had filled itself in, like a miniature door.

And, with a few steps further to investigate, I had fallen down the rabbit’s hole.

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Hmm, how to best approach this…

Here’s a little story:

There was a society of women that decided to live together for one year.  Each had a room in the house, lived together, ate together, and made friends.  Everything was smooth sailing until one of the women, Catherine, noticed something one day.

“It seems like Mary is mad with me,” Catherine said, and she swiftly worked on a letter to send to Mary to ask if she was down or mad with her.

Mary received the letter later in the day and was surprised.  She took it as an act of aggression towards her and was puzzled by what could have caused Catherine to write the letter.  Mary had never felt down or angry, so why would Catherine think such a thing?

Mary didn’t respond to the letter, but tried to ignore it.  But, later in the day, when Catherine was joking about a guest in the house, Mary took it with the anger that she already felt toward Catherine and decided to tell the guest exactly what Catherine had said–even though the hurtful things had been in jest.  Mary soon found out and was outraged that Catherine would do such a thing.

That’s when Mary went to Loraine to tell her what was going on.  Loraine, being friends with both Catherine and Mary, was not eager to choose a side.  She told Catherine to “be the bigger person”.

“But I’ve been the bigger person for far too long.  She’s angry with me, and now she’s treating me horribly!” Catherine cried.

Loraine shook her head, hoping that things would die down as Catherine left the room to write another letter to Mary.

Mary received the second later and became even angrier than she had before.  Why had this girl thought she was mad in the first place?  Well, yes, Mary was now angry, and she had told the guest Catherine’s words because of the anger, but she did not feel at fault.  Reading the letter, Catherine explained that she was now angry with Mary rather than just concerned, and Mary didn’t know what to do.

She, too, searched after Loraine for guidance and advice.  Loraine could offer none, not knowing that the second letter had been sent and received.

And that’s where we leave off for tonight.

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