Eat Pray Love

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Or, Get Out of My Head Elizabeth Gilbert.

When I first wrote that, I originally wrote “Get out of my heart,” which is maybe what I actually meant, but I’m not quite sure yet, having put down this book literally less than ten minutes ago (as I write this).

To say that I devoured this book would be appropriate, especially given part of the title. To say that I breathed it in, examined it, and exhaled the unnecessary parts, would be accurate.

I put off reading Eat Pray Love for a long time. I heard of it when it was first released, but being something like fifteen or sixteen at the time, was almost definitely too young for it. I would have comprehended the plot, certainly, I might have maybe related to certain aspects of the book, but certainly not in the way I did now.

Which is to say that the entire time I read it (in under 24 hours – I paused only to help a good friend pick out an outfit for a wedding and to get just enough sleep to function), I was thinking, “GET OUT OF MY HEAD ELIZABETH GILBERT.”

Which is, really, the highest compliment I can give this book. Any book. This has happened to me a few times before, namely with Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk and The Awakening by Kate Chopin. All three of these books have made me alternately laugh, cry, and be overwhelmed with a sense of companionship and of meeting a soul-friend, which if you’ve never had a soul-friend, someone who reached down into the deepest parts of you and met you on a level of yourself you didn’t know existed, then hope or pray you find one soon.

The way Eat Pray Love made me sit up and go “Yes – someone else gets it,” even when I’m not quite sure what it is, astounded me. No, I haven’t been divorced. No, I haven’t chilled with a medicine man in Bali or lived in an Ashram in India or gone on a No Carb Left Behind experiment in Italy, but I have cried my heart out on my floor multiple nights in a row and lost myself entirely in a relationship and been heartbroken and bitter and desperate and wondered how the fuck I got to where I am. How Liz Gilbert goes about acknowledging these parts of her life and then solving them on her own terms is wonderful in an indescribable way.

That’s a lie. Little in this world is indescribable. All else I’ll choose to say though is this: Buy this book now. Put it on your bookshelf, remember that it’s there. Read it someday when you’re going through a time of self-discovery and change, when you need someone to be a soul-friend, even if you’ve never actually met.

{These opinions are my own. No one paid or asked me to write this and I mean every word I say about this book.}

Earth Day, Dr. Seuss Style

As many of you know, I'm reading a list of 50 books that have been banned for political, religious, or ridiculous reasons over time. Books like Forever, by Judy Blume (my review) because they detailed a girl's decision about whether or not to become sexually active, or The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, which is about a battle between God and Satan through two men (my review).

Well, I just recently read The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, which was banned because it's an allegory for poor treatment of Earth and loggers in California didn't like that so much. It's a story about the greedy Onceler who comes to the Lorax's territory and begins cutting down truffula trees, using the tops to make "thneeds" out of them, something *everyone* needs. He goes out of control, cutting down all the trees, polluting the air, and destroying the habitats of various types of fantastical creatures. The Lorax tries to warn him that he's hurting everyone numerous times, but the Onceler goes right on with his industry. Finally, the truffula trees are gone and everyone leaves, and all he's left with is a pile of rocks that say "Unless..."

Unless we do something. Yeah, this is an Earth Day post. I'm not a hippie-tree-hugger by any means, guys. I'm not going to move into a tree once I get to UC Berkeley. But I think that even when this book was published in 1971, Dr. Seuss brought up a good point. If we're not careful, we'll ruin this Earth for future generations. So, let's do our part. I'm not asking you to bomb a manufacturing plant (in fact, please don't do that), but let's use ceramic mugs instead of plastic cups for our coffee in the morning and carpool to work/school/the movies. I'm not saying that we should ban cars or wear only hemp or whatever. I don't know how much I believe in global warming (I'm not a scientist, I can't look at those figures for myself and draw my own conclusions), but I know for sure that the coral reefs off the coast of Australia are dying, and I know for sure that we're deforesting the Amazon at an alarming rate, and those are beautiful creatures, God's creatures, that need a place to live too.

Think about that today. When our kids are born, and their kids, I want the world to be just as beautiful as it is today, if not more so. I don't want it to look dark and sad like it does where the Onceler lives.

A Little Review For You

So, as you guys know by now, part of my 101 in 1001 list is to finish reading this list of 50 banned books. And I'm already 21 in! Get excited. This past week, I finally finished reading The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, and let me tell you: it was intense. I won't lie, it was not an easy read. I know summer is coming up, but this is not beach material, people! If you choose to read this, read it when you have time to actually sit down and think through what you're reading and understand it.

This is a story about God and the devil, set in a magical realm where they fight a battle of sorts through the fantastical experiences of the two main characters. Saladin Chamcha and Gibreel Farishta are both Muslim actors who are on a place that happens to be hijacked on it's way to England. Their adventure begins as they fall to Earth together after the plane blows up, landing off the coast of England, miraculously alive but greatly transformed. The book takes on a mystical element after that, telling mainly the story of Chamcha and Farishta and their lives after the terrorist hijacking, but also numerous other subplots that intertwine, confusing a reader that doesn't pay attention carefully. But that's what Rushdie wanted.

The book utilizes contemporary issues, basing characters off of real people and places. The title refers to what are known as the satanic verses, a group of alleged Qur'anic that allowed for prayers to be made to three pagan goddesses, Allat, Uzza, and Manat. This is what makes the book controversial: Muslims consider these references blasphemous. The book was banned in India, caused unrest in the UK, and was the subject of an all out riot in Pakistan in 1989. Following the riot, the Ayatollah Ruholla Komeini, Supreme Leader of Iran (and a Shi'a Muslim scholar) issued a fatwa against Rushdie, meaning that any good Muslim was technically supposed to do whatever possible to kill him or ensure he was killed. Hot. Damn. Of course, the British police weren't going to allow this to happen and Rushdie remains safe to this day. The same can't be said of all his publishers though -- the fatwa was against them as well, and several have been injured and even killed because of this book. Komeini has since passed away and the hype seems to have died down some, though the book is still banned in Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Iran, Kenya, Kuwait, Liberia, Papua New Guinea, Pakistan, Senegal, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, and Thailand.

Rushdie, honestly, is a brilliant story-teller. There were parts I had to reread to understand, but I think that's more a tribute to his genius and says more about how easily distracted I am than anything. Definitely add this to your To Read list. I've already added the rest of his novels. :)

Forever, Judy Blume

Today, I sat down and read Judy Blume's Forever. It's number three on this list of 50 banned books that last September I added to my list of 101 in 1001. :) I'm going to be right up front with you -- I didn't really enjoy it. It wasn't bad, or anything; it was a good story, one most girls can relate to. But it was definitely written to be aimed to young teenagers (we're talking 15, 16, maybe 17), and definitely written with a low vocabulary so anyone can relate. Complaining aside though, I can tell why it was banned. Beyond the few drug references and the underage drinking (though, I don't know if 18 was already underage when the book was written back in the 70s), the book deals very bluntly and heavily with sex. The story is about a girl's first love -- they meet as seniors in high school, fall in love, and start talking about having sex. He already has, but she's still a virgin and wants to wait. Most of the rest of the book details their parents' interference, how their physical relationship develops and her thoughts on whether or not she wants to have sex. Of course, the fact that they're seniors in high school comes into play, and a big conflict (if you can call it that) is how they'll stay together after graduation.

All in all, that book is very plain-jane in terms of the style of writing. Any senior in high school could have written it straight from her diary. I don't know if I'd recommend it, except to maybe a girl already on Katherine's train of thought who needs advice but won't listen to her parents or any other real person.

Have any of y'all read it?

Classic Christmastime

I'm finally getting a chance to sit down and email in a post about how wonderful Christmas was. Six hour drives will do that.

We visited Dad's family as we always do, and with five kids running around funny moments are always bound to come up. Yesterday, the
youngest, Austin (10), managed to somehow get a splinter in his finger. His dad and Grandma were trying to get it out when his older
sister Grace (14) started antagonizing him. I don't remember what she said first, but I know we were all laughing at it, which Austin took as laughing at him. He lunged at her, but luckily his dad caught him before he could attack. He said, "Come here, let's look at this thing in the light." to which Austin replied, "Hold ON, I have to beat her up!" It was hysterical an a classic family moment. :)

We also saw Sherlock Holmes that night, which was good. I definitely recommend it for anyOne in the mood for some fun action and a little mystery. Plus, you really must see Rachel McAdams and Robert Downey Jr act alongside each other, it's great.

How were your Christmases? Any funny stories?

1066: The Year of Conquest

Okay, so I'm such a nerd that I actually enjoy reading textbooks. And you know what? I'm PROUD of that.

But, this is one y'all should read too if you have even the least bit of interest in English history -- kings, queens, court intrigue, wars, etc.

It technically isn't a textbook, though my English History class is using it as one. It's a tiny little book (think 4 by 7 inches) of 201 pages that is so interesting I finished it in two days. It's called 1066: The Year of Conquest (but you could have guessed that from the title of this entry) by David Howarth. He's funny, bluntly honest about the messier, lustful, dangerous, and hilarious parts of history, and makes it interesting. It isn't all memorizing dates (because it happens all in one year) or locations, and he delves into how people actually acted in 1066. People in this book have a personality and you'll find yourself passionately hating some and falling in love with others. You'll hardly remember you're learning anything.

Inglourious Basterds

I give this movie two thumbs down. For those of you that follow me on Twitter, you probably saw my opinions of this movie at about 1 am CT this morning when it finally ended and I tried not to rip my eyes out and/or find Quinten Tarantino and punch him in the face. For those of you that don't know the plot, it's basically about a group of Jewish-American soldiers in Nazi-occupied France during WWII. They're sent over to spread fear throughout the Third Reich by brutally killing (and by their own accord, scalping) Nazis. There's also a story that eventually intertwines with theirs about a Jewish woman who escaped being massacred with her family and ends up owning a cinema that is forced to host a Nazi movie premiere (oh, sweet irony). It sounds like a decent enough plot, but having seen it, I'm finding myself asking (not for the first time) why Tarantino's so revered as a great movie-maker.

• It's not funny. At all. One of the "funnier" characters, Col. Hans Landa (played by Christoph Waltz), is simply annoying. He doesn't make any sense as a character, one moment appearing slightly homosexual, the next a womanizer, the next a ruthless murder, the next a nice man that loves good French cuisine, and the next a babbling idiot. There's no continuity to his character and his lines that are supposed to be funny simply aren't.
  
• Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) really grated on me the most, I think. He's supposed to be this American Hero from Tennessee, killing Nazis (or as he'd say nat-si's) and disturbing the order of the Third Reich. However, he comes across as a dumbass who's only interest in life is senseless killing. I understand that death is a necessary by-product of war, blah blah blah, but that doesn't mean that soldiers are bloodthirsty. Pitt's character certainly is violent and bloodthirsty, though, and it's to a point of being slightly disgusting. I mean, I can handle blood (I wanted to be a surgeon for a while) but parts of this movie that made me gag. On top of that, I was actually kind of insulted at the portrayal of American military men as all being bloodthirsty, not very intelligent, cruel, and so ethnocentric that they refuse to learn another language. His treatment of Diane Kruger's character was also less than wonderful, bordering on torturing her for something she couldn't have controlled. The only redeeming quality of this character had nothing to do with the movie -- instead, it proved once again that Brad Pitt is a great actor. If I didn't hope for better, I would be tempted to think that this movie was made entirely to show off Pitt's acting skills, and not to actually be worthwhile entertainment.
  
• Also, I'm slightly disappointed in Diane Kruger's role in this movie. She seemed an utterly pointless character, serving only as a pretty face to differentiate from the endless supply of annoying men and a big name to draw more viewers in the US. If they wanted her for that that, they could have had her play Melanie Laurent's part (though Laurent is pretty enough to play Kruger's) and had her kill two (or three) birds with one stone -- being pretty, drawing viewers, and actually moving the plot along.
• That reminds me -- this movie is painfully long. Length wouldn't be bad if it were like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which has an endless supply of explosions and running to keep you entertained for the 150 minutes it's playing. Inglourious Basterds though, even at a mere three minutes longer, felt hours longer because it's mostly people sitting around chatting. There's a lot of planning in this movie, which while it would have happened in real life (if this movie were remotely true to history), is incredibly boring to watch.

All this is to say -- please don't waste your money seeing it. Because I'm a student, I luckily only wasted $4, but I still wish I hadn't;I could have spent that $4 on a grande iced white chocolate mocha with soy from starbucks and read a good book for three hours (Freakonomics, Atlas Shrugged, This Child Will Be Great...), which would have been an infinitely better way to spend my time.

Reasons why your next week will be spent in movie theatres

In the past week, I've finally seen Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Harry Potter for the second time, (500) Days of Summer, The Ugly Truth, and The History Boys, which I found for $5 at Sam Goody. And I loved all of them so much, I'm giving you reasons to go see them.

Transformers 2: I got exactly what I expected out of this movie. I'll be honest, what people say about plotholes is pretty true -- I was left with a lot of questions at the end: What happened to the really annoying guy? Or the little mini Decepticon turned Autobot? Robot heaven...whaaat? Are those really that close together geographically? Etc. However, the total tomboy in me loved the plethora of giant explosions and superb animation (except at one point). The girl in me also liked seeing Shia Lebouf really prove once again that he's a great actor (as well as extremely attractive). Megan Fox was cool too -- though I did note that her right forearm never ended up on camera -- must have been to hide her ridiculous tattoo. Anyways, the movie was great, and I recommend it to everyone. It's also a great date movie. :)

Harry Potter: I've discussed this one before, but I have a few more comments on it: Tom Felton is such a wonderful actor. I knew that in every movie, but this movie kind of hit you over the head with it repeatedly. He doesn't really talk much in the movie, but just his acting alone shows you what a complicated character Draco Malfoy is. Mmm. :] <3 style="font-weight: bold;">[SPOILER ALERT] JK Rowling didn't make it totally obvious Ginny Weasley and Harry would end up together at the beginning of the series because otherwise the people that did the casting would have made sure the girl that played Ginny would have been extremely gorgeous (red-headed Megan Fox?) instead of the wonderfully adorable Bonnie Wright who I actually respect as an actress. While Bonnie is really pretty, she's perfect for it because Harry doesn't fall for Ginny because she's a supermodel, it's because she's very real. [End spoilers.] Rupert Grint is also proving that he's a great actor as well as a very interesting person, though really he started to prove his famous actor status in Prisoner of Azakaban. Anyways, though the movie leaves things out (like introducing two very important characters -- Bill and Charlie Weasley), but it's great and totally worth seeing.

(500) Days of Summer: This movie is different. As it says on the website, it's not a love story, but a story about love. Boy meets girl, boy falls in love, girl doesn't. It's about searching for "the one" and how unnervingly easy it is to be incredibly wrong about him/her. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel give it so much life and make it quirky and refreshingly different. Everything about the movie is so different, and even knowing the plotline upfront, it was still powerful. And the music is great. I've said the least about this movie so far, but I urge you to see it the most. (I got to see it at the Angelika Theatre in Dallas, hence the picture.)

The Ugly Truth: I saw this one with Cyndi and I think we both agree that it was cute. Like Transformers, I got exactly what I expected out of it. Self-proclaimed man-whore "love is a lie" guy falls for the beautiful girl who's dreams about prince-charming were never shattered. The whole story was obvious from the previews, but we all knew we weren't going to find out what happened. Go because this movie is funny. It's a chick-flick, but it's one I could see guys going to and enjoying because it's look on falling in love is hilarious.

The History Boys: This movie is based on a play by Alan Bennett and actually came out a few years ago, but it's awesome. It's about some boys at an all-boys grammar school in England and their teachers that are preparing them for the Oxford and Cambridge entrance exams. But, of course, the movie covers their lives outside of school -- it covers every teacher's relationship to the boys and to each other and whether or not they've crossed societal boundaries in them, and it shows the boys' search for lust, excitement, and importance before they're separated and sent off to university. It's a great movie, every actor is wonderful, and I highly recommend it for your next night in. Though, if you're at all homophobic, I would suggest you watch it with the knowledge that there are homosexual overtones. It's not over-the-top or anything, but it's clear. I can see why the play won the Tony Award and the Olivier Award.

Mod Cloth

Mod Cloth is a really random website I stumbled across earlier this week (I'm not honestly sure how I found it) and am now totally in love with. It's very modern bohemian and earthy, if you're into that sort of fashion (which I am). They have great vintage stuff, shoes, accessories, etc. This dress has quickly become my favorite... I think. They have nine pages worth of dresses (with 50 dresses per page!) so it's kind of hard to decide. But I think that one won. But, even more cool is all their cute apartment stuff. Okay, as you guys know, I'm moving into a new apartment soon so anything labeled apartment has been catching my eye recently. It's mostly accessories-type stuff like this kickass Vintage Shoe Bible, the I Am Not a Paper Towel towel set, and this really random but awesome brain-cell shaped plush toy that I seriously might get.

Other things I kind of really want:

The Wet Cats book. Uhm, cats that are wet are all sorts of hilarious.

Cat shaped ice? Count me in.

Uhm, hi pretty white boots. These are exciting, but I'd get them so dirty, so fast.The Key to the City ring. I like the idea of this -- it's super original.

(No, they did not pay me to make this post. I legitimately mean everything I said in here.)

Really, I'm 19?

Birthdays are so lame now. I don't feel even kind of different than I did on Sunday when I was still 18. Oh well.

Despite what I just said about birthdays, go wish my good friend Kevin a happy birthday! He's twenty now and feels just like me -- no different than he did yesterday, haha.

So far, I've been doing well with the photo-a-day thing. On the 14th, I took one with the ever-wonderful Cyndi (whose really artsy shoes you should go check out, by the way) at a local coffee shop that we frequent (and where I'm sitting to write this). Look, you can see the bangs that I cut myself and that my mom almost killed me for! Later, we went to the midnight release of Harry Potter together -- we're HP nerds and proud! I think we both agree on the movie pretty well -- it's one of the best done ones (though I still think the first was the best) and they really made good use of light moments to offset an otherwise incredibly dark movie. My only complaint would be that the movie is called Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and a central part of the book was trying to find out who the Half Blood Prince was, yet in the movie only a few moments were dedicated to trying to figure it out. At the end, when the identity of the Prince is revealed I was actually like "Oh, right, that's what this movie is about." But it was good. And my picture for the 15th was actually a picture of something we saw at the movie theatre (it would have been of the movie tickets, but they weren't very cute). That "for humans only" theme went throughout the whole theatre -- on bathrooms, on the doors into the actual rooms with screens. It was pretty funny. You can't tell in the picture, but the bottom of the signs says "Call this number to report any non-humans!" It was pretty great.

Other than that -- life has been okay. I got really really sick yesterday so all my evening plans had to be cancelled (but don't worry, I still took my picture!). But it gave me time to rest and I'm back on my feet today! But I should sign off so I can go teach a private swimming lesson.

Have a great day everyone! Have y'all seen Harry Potter yet? If not, go see it!

Home Again

So, I'm settling back in at home and it feels great. I'm back to working "too much" (I love my job, honestly), writing, drinking waaaay too much coffee (I've been to starbucks/Buon Giornio's four times in the past 24 hours), and just being happy. I'm not doing so well on that list of 50 banned books that I wanted to read, but I have been reading a lot. I read The Prince by Machiavelli, which Cyndi let me borrow, I'm almost done with Jackie after Jack: Portrait of the Lady by Christopher Andersen, which has been a great book about the mysterious Jackie O. Both books are definitely ones I'd recommend, especially if you're interested in politics at all. I also, without consulting the list, ordered blink by Malcolm Gladwell and Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen J Dubner. So I'll probably start on those tonight while I'm working from 2:30 - 9. My friend Kevin, the one who was nice enough to give me a ride home on Saturday, is also going to start helping me learn guitar soon, so that's really awesome. Maybe this time I'll actually learn. How great would that be? I found some of the people I met randomly on vacation on facebook, so now we're all friends and hopefully I'll be able to keep in touch with them.

On top of all the wonderful reading and working and getting paid (I forgot to go deposit my paycheck! Dang it!), I've been going to this Bible study recently that my friend Jenny started, which has been really great. It's been cool to have a group of friends I can talk God with because not all of my friends are religious so bringing it up can occasionally turn kind of awkward. I've been having a lot of conversations about God with a lot of people recently that I would have never expected to talk with me about it though, so maybe it's a sign that I need to be more comfortable talking about it.

Well, it's time to grab lunch and head to work. Hooray. Have a great day, everyone. :)

Learned: Rain boots are a must-have

I’m learning a lot on this trip – you know, why it’s called backpacking, that peach schnapps are all right… and now that rain boots are a must-have for a trip to Europe.

This isn’t my first trip to Europe. Or second, or third, or fourth. I’d venture to guess it’s well into the double digits, actually. But, it’s taken me this long to realize that rain boots are a must have when traveling to Europe. Why, you ask? Because it will rain at least once, and it will be miserable.

Oh, and no, your really cute TOMS do not count as appropriate rain shoes.

If you couldn’t guess yet, it rained a lot today. And I was wearing really cute TOMS because we weren’t expecting rain and therefore none of us had rain boots. It wouldn’t have been so bad if we hadn’t decided to go on a (really stinkin’ awesome) tour two hours outside of Munich that required a thirty minute hike. But other than the freezing rain and my TOMS that were once off-white but are now brown, the tour was amazing. (The picture is what they used to look like. Weren't they cute? http://www.tomsshoes.com)

We visited one of King Ludwig II’s (or, in German: König Ludwig) dream castles, Neuschwanstein (again, in German: Schloss Neuschwanstein), which is nestled high in the mountains above a tiny little town. I’d be surprised if you feel like that’s a familiar name, but if you do, it’s because it’s the castle that Disney based the castle in their company logo on, as well as many of the castles in their movies. I won’t give you a full history of König Ludwig’s lifetime and reign, but I’ll cover some basic facts for you: many often say that Ludwig was slightly mentally incompetent/insane. In his childhood, he withdrew from his parents and the proper grooming to become a king of Bavaria, and when he was suddenly shoved into the position prematurely at eighteen, he was entirely unprepared to take control of the kingdom for many reasons. Instead of trying to rise to the occasion, he brought composer/playwright Richard Wagner to Bavaria, gave him a home, and asked him to bring Ludwig’s childhood fantasies to life.

As Wagner brought these fantasies to life, Ludwig ordered the building of three castles to house these fantasies, attempted to get married, lost a war, and began what can only be deemed as a controversial relationship with Wagner. All of this eventually led him to ruin – Bavaria lost it’s military independence to Prussia, he never married his betrothed (that's a picture of statuettes of them to the left) and never fathered an heir, he fell into immense debt (yet was planning a fourth castle when he died), and his courtiers became suspicious of Ludwig and Wagner and demanded that the playwright leave Bavaria or they would. Ludwig was eventually deemed mentally insane due to intense substance abuse (morphine and cocaine at the same time), was asked to abdicate the throne, but was probably assassinated before he was ever able to appear before the parliament and make his case against mental insanity. I say ‘probably’ because the day after he was served the papers declaring his incompetency to rule, he and his psychiatrist were found “drowned” in a lake near Munich, but the autopsy showed no signs of water in their lungs.

Because of his death, Schloss Neuschwanstein was never completed, but from what was completed, his childlike mentality seems clear. Other than his throne room, which is decorated to look like a Byzantine church with lots of vivid colors and scenes depicting the Apostles, every room has a different legend as a theme – his bedroom shows the story of Tristan and Isolde and another passageway was constructed to appear like a cave so he could play out a scene from one of Wagner’s plays. A huge hallway is decorated with stained glass, carvings of mythical creatures (I’m talking unicorns here) and baby animals, and other frolicking things adorn the walls. It’s beautiful, and interesting, and adorable, but it looks like it was decorated to be a play palace for the children of a royal family, not the castle of a grown ruler.

Maybe he wasn’t totally mentally incompetent; maybe he was just “eccentric and gentle” as my sometimes-too-kind-for-her-own-good mother said. Either way, he’s still considered one of the favorite past rulers by people in Germany because his immense building projects boosted the economy not only then but to this day. He seems cool; I would have liked to have met him.