(no subject)
Well, this was an interesting weekend! This past week was all kinds of obnoxious due to my final set of internship and study abroad applications. Essays, essays everywhere. I also had one of those charming group projects where I wound up doing the majority of the work and having to get snappish because people weren't submitting their information in a timely manner. Seriously, when something is due at midnight, DO NOT wait until 11:40 to submit your part of the document! Good grief.
The past two days, however, have been sort of excellent. Went to the International Street Fair on Saturday, which is one of my favorite events of the year. Favorite new weird foods: three-color salad (a Vietnamese dessert made with beans, tapioca, and coconut milk), almond-stuffed dates from Saudi Arabia, and lime mousse from Brazil. I am convinced that these sorts of events would be a rockin' way to bring about world peace -- just get people to try one another's delicious food and dance around together for a bit, and boom. Instant global bros. It'd be wonderful.
Went to see The Hunger Games yesterday. A few non-spoilery notes: the change from first- to third-person narration really did a lot for the story and made a number of the characters more likeable. Between her roles as Katniss and Mystique, Jennifer Lawrence is rapidly becoming one of my favorite actresses. Lenny Kravitz makes a perfect Cinna and is also a stunningly good-looking human being. I love the Capitol's design and am really really mad that I wasn't in Charlotte when they were filming there -- I used to go to some of the shooting locations on a fairly regular basis! In short, it was excellent, and this week I'm making a point to finish the other two books in the series.
I also watched The Fall earlier this week. If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and go acquire a copy. It's absolutely beautiful. It is far and away the prettiest movie I've ever seen, and I have such a weakness for stories about storytelling. I think it is my new favorite film. (It's like every single aspect of this movie was custom-tailored to my interests. Darwin! Deserts! Lee Pace with some sort of glorious mohawk-thing! I would be Roy's masked bandit for Halloween in a heartbeat, because every single aspect of his costume is pleasing to mine eyes, but this movie came out half a decade ago and is obscure enough that nobody would know who I was. Sigh.)
It's been a good couple of days for art, too. It sounds a bit odd, but I've actually been following a number of taxidermy blogs over on Tumblr as inspiration/reference material for scientific illustration stuff. I doodle almost constantly, but it's been a while since I've made any major progress on the art front, and I figure some anatomical studies are a good idea.
I also learned to tie-dye today! Well, not really. What I actually learned was how to make really freakin' cool designs on shirts with powdered dye, and have some epic plans involving bleach pens and stencils for some of the shirts I treated today. Apparently my patterns were interesting enough that other people asked me to do their shirts for them, and as a result my hands are stained to look like the nastiest case of frostbite ever. Goes interestingly with the turquoise nails, I suppose.
I should go to bed, but I did laundry today and kind of neglected to put the sheets back on my bed before my roommate went to sleep. If you've ever tried to put a fitted sheet on a loft bed that's against a wall, you'll understand my hesitation to attempt anything at the moment. This should be interesting.
The past two days, however, have been sort of excellent. Went to the International Street Fair on Saturday, which is one of my favorite events of the year. Favorite new weird foods: three-color salad (a Vietnamese dessert made with beans, tapioca, and coconut milk), almond-stuffed dates from Saudi Arabia, and lime mousse from Brazil. I am convinced that these sorts of events would be a rockin' way to bring about world peace -- just get people to try one another's delicious food and dance around together for a bit, and boom. Instant global bros. It'd be wonderful.
Went to see The Hunger Games yesterday. A few non-spoilery notes: the change from first- to third-person narration really did a lot for the story and made a number of the characters more likeable. Between her roles as Katniss and Mystique, Jennifer Lawrence is rapidly becoming one of my favorite actresses. Lenny Kravitz makes a perfect Cinna and is also a stunningly good-looking human being. I love the Capitol's design and am really really mad that I wasn't in Charlotte when they were filming there -- I used to go to some of the shooting locations on a fairly regular basis! In short, it was excellent, and this week I'm making a point to finish the other two books in the series.
I also watched The Fall earlier this week. If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and go acquire a copy. It's absolutely beautiful. It is far and away the prettiest movie I've ever seen, and I have such a weakness for stories about storytelling. I think it is my new favorite film. (It's like every single aspect of this movie was custom-tailored to my interests. Darwin! Deserts! Lee Pace with some sort of glorious mohawk-thing! I would be Roy's masked bandit for Halloween in a heartbeat, because every single aspect of his costume is pleasing to mine eyes, but this movie came out half a decade ago and is obscure enough that nobody would know who I was. Sigh.)
It's been a good couple of days for art, too. It sounds a bit odd, but I've actually been following a number of taxidermy blogs over on Tumblr as inspiration/reference material for scientific illustration stuff. I doodle almost constantly, but it's been a while since I've made any major progress on the art front, and I figure some anatomical studies are a good idea.
I also learned to tie-dye today! Well, not really. What I actually learned was how to make really freakin' cool designs on shirts with powdered dye, and have some epic plans involving bleach pens and stencils for some of the shirts I treated today. Apparently my patterns were interesting enough that other people asked me to do their shirts for them, and as a result my hands are stained to look like the nastiest case of frostbite ever. Goes interestingly with the turquoise nails, I suppose.
I should go to bed, but I did laundry today and kind of neglected to put the sheets back on my bed before my roommate went to sleep. If you've ever tried to put a fitted sheet on a loft bed that's against a wall, you'll understand my hesitation to attempt anything at the moment. This should be interesting.