Movie Minute: Anne Uses a Camera

This summer, the family visited me in Raleigh, and we all explored the science museum at the heart of the city. Anne, my five-year-old sister, has recently learned the mechanics of my mother's camera. This is her in front of the exhibit about honey bees taking pictures of herself!! She has some quite interesting poses!!

Please Don't Take my Sunshine Away

On the morning of Day One without Stuart, I slept way later than I'm used to from nursing the side effects of staying up half the night with my roommates and their partying friends plus the added help of a martini glass of homemade strawberry daiquiri without the mixer (yes, I stereotypically turned to the guest that's always invited to a party: alcohol. But, I didn't even have a whole shot of rum and that was it. I was so completely sober that I was in charge of taking the so not sober people to Spartan Mart for more alcohol. Drinking the daiquiri was more symbolic than anything else as it clearly didn't alter my mind or mood).
That day, Stuart and I were supposed to attend a wedding together, his best friends' wedding to be exact. Stuart would be a groomsman; I would be an audience member, and together we would dance away the night at the reception together, him in his tuxedo and me in a little flowing dress. Upon waking, the realization that none of this was going to happen was crushing. Suddenly, I had to see him!
With only an hour to get ready, I had Anna straighten my wild hair and help me pick out a dress. I raced around the house like a madwoman before jumping in my car for Winston Salem. It was the longest, most agonizing drive. There were so many things I wanted to say, there were so many things I had to say!

I got to the church an hour early (my first mistake). I walked in in my knee-length forest green dress with cap sleeves and a sweetheart neckline. It's my favorite in my closet. And there was Stuart! He wore a chocolate brown tuxedo with shiny brown shoes, auburn vest, crisp tie, and a fall-inspired corsage on his chest. He was the most handsome I'd ever seen him, and because of what had happened the day before, it was socially unacceptable for me to hold his hand... forget pulling him into my arms for a long, passionate kiss, which is all I wanted to do. He was beautiful; he was looked like any movie character at the prom, wedding, or masquerade ball scene where the lovers come together in their best dressed and exchange shy, loving smiles. Except this time... there were no loving smiles. It was tense and awkward and heartbreaking.
I signed the guest book and Stuart escorted me into the beautifully decorated church. I was left alone in the middle of the pew with nothing to do for an hour. I was in agony! To distract myself, I picked up the Holy Bible and began reading ravenously.
It was the worst torture I had ever put myself through... or so I thought. Then the wedding started. Ashley was so breathtaking and beautiful in her white flowing dress! It was perfect for her! And as soon as she started walking down the aisle, she and her maid of honor started tearing up. I kept glancing at Stuart, but his back was turned to me. I sat through the quick ceremony blinking back tears and trying not to lose it. I was heartbroken, the bridge and the groom were getting exactly what I had dreamed of: a beautiful wedding, and the man I love more than anything was looking the best he ever had ten feet away and he wasn't mine anymore.

To be continued...

44. The Vampire Diaries - The Awakening

Book 44: The Vampire Diaries - The Awakening by L. J. Smith (B)

I am absolutely in love with the CW TV series based on this book! However, the book... not so much. I feel like Smith doesn't have the skill to write as well as she could, but the novel has become popular because it's another one of those boy-vampire-meets-human-girl novels. It really is a knock-off of Twilight, but there's no loving Cullen family. Instead, there are feuding vampire brothers.

Damon (L), Elena, and Stephan (R)

Elena is your stereotypical high school queen! She is everything anyone would want to be - beautiful, skinny, blonde hair, cheerleader, Homecoming Queen, and any man can be hers! She even has an entourage following her throughout her school day. Her dark feelings about her parents' sudden death in a car crash are hidden away in her diary. Along comes Stephan Salvatore - handsome, Italian, and vampire! He resists Elena at first, but eventually succumbs to her identical beauty to a past love, Katherine, that he and his brother, Damon, murdered. Katherine, unable to decide between the love she felt for both brothers, changed them both into vampires, which led to Katherine's withering away to dust by the sunlight and the Salvatore brothers' forever-long feud.
However, when Stephan comes to Fell's Church, VA, murders occur in high numbers. An old man is attacked, a high school girl has her neck slashed, and the high school history teacher is drained of blood. Stephan can't explain it. He's often found blacked out in the woods, in the cemetery, in the high school boys locker room. He is racked with guilt at his inability to control his thrist for blood and decides to leave town when Elena declares her love, even after he tells her what he is.
Ok, pause! Here is another crazy, stupid girl who doesn't run when a bloodthirsty monster announces he's undead and wants to snap her neck and drain her. Bella, are you listening to me right now? In the television spin-off of this novel, Elena actually pushes Stephan away for two episodes before the inevitable "I'll love you forever no matter what you are." Here, Elena is completely blind and stupid and probably possessed by something unnatural at the way she throws herself at Stephan without thinking! Even Bella had more self control than that. And, I'm not saying that's horrible fiction, I myself being a Twilight fan, but the way Smith wrote Elena... it was just dumb! It's like the girl who goes back again and again to the guy who beats her up. Ladies, take a stand!!! Dump the testosterone-filled loser and quit chasing after the vampire!! In both situations, your life is in peril! 
The show is definitely so much better than this book! The show not only has beautiful actors playing the vampires (oh Ian Somerhalder, you are my Edward Cullen) but they really expand the very simple plot of the novel. I've only made it through The Awakening and I'm on the second season of the show, but the series makes a whole lot more sense and is more entertaining on TV than I think it'll ever be in the book.

43. Aquamarine

Book 43: Aquamarine by Alice Hoffman (B-)

I really did expect more from this novella. After reading the praise of the author on the back cover, I thought the tale was going to be an explosion of description, beautiful adjectives, and such detail! But really... Hoffman uses the same adjectives and descriptions so much that they lose their magic. At the end, I shrugged and thought, "Well, I got another book out of it for my goal." There was nothing magical about it.
Two girls are spending their last summer together before one moves away to Florida with her grandparents. One night a horrible storm rocks their coastal town, and a mermaid is washed into the local swimming pool. The girls help her find true love during her brief time in a club's swimming pool. The mermaid, Aquamarine, wasn't some fantastical creature from the ocean's beauty. She was actually spoiled and snobbish. The character wasn't at all fascinating as the girls thought she was. Aquamarine was quite plainly a b____!
This book excelled in its beautiful blue-inked sketches at the beginning of every chapter. They were the spark the text was lacking. I looked forward to seeing what sketch would appear on the next chapter more than I anticipated the plot of the book.

Chapter 1's illustration

I think the story is better written for young readers. While it was in the young adult section that sported popular fiction like The Vampire Diaries and some twisted supernatural college-appropriate stories, the novel is clearly meant for middle schoolers. I was surprised it in the young adult section, because isn't there a popular family friendly movie about this little book? Well, young adult or not, it deserves to be in the juvenile section.
If you're looking for a quick read or a new bedtime story for the kiddies, this is definitely the book that spark their imaginations. It has a simple plot that won't give nightmares, and it teaches important values like friendship and courage. Looking at the novel from a young reader's viewpoint, I was impressed, but definitely 14 or younger.

42. The Buddha of Suburbia

Book 42: The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi (B)

I read this book for my English 348 class. I was surprised by the choice, but as I continued to read... the choice became perfectly clear. My professor is in love with the idea of "national identity." It is a passion of his that he expressed to me when I interviewed him for a features article in The Carolinian. He also seems to have an interest and loves to debate about the interpretation of sex in literature. Several poems and as the novels continue through the semester, sex has become quite prominent. The Buddha of Suburbia is no exception.
At first, I was not a fan of the novel. A half Indian, half British teen is growing up in the suburbs of England with his bizarre father who is carrying on an affair behind the back of the miserable, pathetic mother. Karim, the teen, tries to find out who he is in a country that sees him as black and treats him like a foreigner. He's complicated, strange, and messed up from his kinky sexuality and his Indian father leaving his British mother for a very commercial, flamboyant woman named Eva. His parents' relationship and their fall-out is complicated and ugly. One of my favorite moments in the text comes from a visit to the upper class aunt and uncle's house.
"Once I remember Mum looking reproachfully at Dad, as if to say: What husband are you to give me so little when the other men, the Alans and Barrys and Peters and Roys, provide cars, houses, holidays, central heating and jewellery? They can at least put up shelves or fix the fence. What can you do" (29)?
Karim continues to wonder about the differences between what Eva calls "interesting" and "ugly people" later in the text after his parents split.

"When Eva had gone and I lay for the first time in the same house as Charlie and Eva and my father, I thought about the difference between interesting people and the nice people. And how they can't always be identical. The interesting people you wanted to be with - their minds were unusual, you saw things freshly with them and all was not deadness and repetition... Then there were the nice people who weren't interesting, and you didn't want to know what they thought of anything. Like Mum, they were good and meek and deserved more love. But it was the interesting ones, like Eva with her hard, taking edge, who ended up with everything, and in bed with my father" (93).

 The novel is very adult and debates the idea of how to identify with who you are based on other people's interpretation of you.
I'd recommend it for people who are more interested in reading about deep characters than they are a storyline or an interesting, exciting plot. Nothing really much happens in the novel, but the characters are deep like something of Michael Cummingham's.

Works Cited:

Kureishi, Hanif. The Buddha of Suburbia. NewYork: 

The Penguin Group, 1990. Print.

Photo of the Day November 14

In an effort to eat better and live a happier life, I am finally doing what everyone has told me: I'm changing my diet. Yesterday, Ma took me out to good ole Wal-Mart and we picked up some lovely fruits, whole grains, and organic goodies. This here is my new favorite snack! But don't pat me on the back yet, it's only day one... and I still have Halloween candy left! We'll see how this goes!
But after a whole night of complete sleep and with sleeping on a full pillow instead of my "flillow" as Stuart calls it and a whole bottle of water this morning, I'm feeling very alert and active! And, I like it! 

One Year, One Month, and Four Days

Stuart broke up with me today...
It's over. 
And as the realization of how much I've just lost crashes upon me, I can't write any more. I need some time because right now, it just hurts so much.