Under the Skin

I didn't even like the book!  Why did I go to the movie?  I don't know.  Well, I guess any book you're not impressed with, go and watch the movie.  Apparently it makes you like the book better.  Here's the thing.  The book was so mediocre, that I expected to feel the same way about the movie.  After watching the movie, I realized that for them to have missed the value (which they did), it needed to have value to lose. Another thing I realized about the movie:  If you go, prepare for the death of masculinism.  We've heard all about the "death of feminism" in different media offerings, right?  Now I'm talking about the death of masculinism.  Because this movie (and this book) are very empowering to women.  There isn't a single woman in the book/movie (good or evil) who isn't powerful.  But in the movie, the men are reduced to eye candy.  Every single one of them.  Including the main character's brother.  He'...

I passed my test!  Yay for Hannah! Anyways, we are now overdue for some Old Testament commentary.  So, here we are. I was thinking the other day about all those kings in the book of Chronicles that only last for one chapter apiece.  Why do we even have them in the Bible?  It turns out that you can learn a lot from these One Chapter Wonders.  Just a few things about them. Let's start with Jehoram (not to say that Asa and Jehosaphat aren't worth reading, too, but we have to start somewhere). Jehoram is flat-out bad.  He kills all his brothers and marries Ahab's daughter, and tries his best to not do what he's supposed to do.  Eventually, Elijah prophesies bad stuff for Israel, and Jehoram dies of what sounds a lot like IBD or Crohn's or something like that. Then we get Ahaziah.  He was twenty-two when he came to power (actually, Chronicles says 42, but Kings says 22, and that makes a lot more sense in context, and Hebrew scribes were notorious...

I have taken my maybe-last practice test before I take the ASCP test tomorrow.  I am so nervous, but I know that I have the ability to pass it.  We'll see if I bring that to fruition or not.  But I read another book.  A Children's book.  And it was fantastic, and it qualifies for book review and SickFic. This middle-grade book is about Lydia Hawkins, a girl who grew up in the mountains of West Virginia.  Her father died when she was very young, her Grandmother passed away recently, and when her genius younger brother, BJ, dies of Cystic Fibrosis, her mother is charged with child endangerment, and sentenced to ten-to-fifteen years in prison.  Now, she lives with her aunt and uncle in a coal mining town, where she is known as the girl with the mountain dialect and the murderer mother.  She only has one dream now, and that is setting her mother free. This story, in feel, theme and story is very reminiscent of the books of Katherine Paterso...

“We've all started to put down the virtues of the other factions in the process of bolstering our own. I don't want to do that. I want to be brave, and selfless, and smart, and kind, and honest." I am breaking one of my rules.  I am reviewing a book before its whole series gets a review, and the whole series is out.  Tough beans, I guess.  I think it's because the movie just came out, and so we need this book review out in the universe for those who like to read books before going to movies, and for those who don't read books until I review them.  Don't lie.  I know you're out there.  Because I am just that awesome.  So, here's a book review for Divergent .     You had to have known that at some point, my dystopia obsesion would rear its ugly head once again.  It was, quite frankly, inevitable.  But we've also discussed that I'm kind of a dystopia snob, and this one just doesn't quite make the cut.  I saw it descri...

“A philosopher once asked, "Are we human because we gaze at the stars, or do we gaze at them because we are human?  Pointless, really..."Do the stars gaze back?" Now that's a question.”    Less than a week before my ASCP exam.  Fourth night of my seven on.  Bring it on!  That's my life right now.  But I still found the time to do a little reading.  I actually study better when I don't study non-stop.  And that's actually true of the majority of the world, no matter how much we try to fight it. You know those people who say that the book is always better than the movie?  Well, they're usually right.  But sometimes, you can't make generalizations like that.  This is one of those examples.  The movie was phenomenal.   It was fun, clever and tender.  It was thoroughly enjoyable.  The book was usually so, but the ending was awful.  There's all of this build and potential.  And ...

This is the first one that I considered just letting be in the camera, and never letting it see the light of day.  But that would go against the project.  After seeing myself on tape, I realized how much I let my posture and technic go while I was in college.  I can hear my old violin teachers in  my head as I watch it (especially the Russian one):  "Straight bow!  Move down your hand.  Don't rest your scroll on your hand! Why are you using your bow so fast?  Conserve your bow space!  Why are playing this entire piece so fast?--" and my favorite--"that's not vibrato, that's shivering!" Well, at least I now know what I need to restore.  So, I present Meditation from Thais.  The most commonly played violin song in history, probably.

I know...I have multiple blog series, and multiple styles of posts.  I'm working on a new Falling With Style, but this next one is a blog series that I've been wanting to start for a long time.  As many of you know, I work a lot with children with chronic illnesses.  Hemophilia and Von Willebrands to be exact.  As well as carriers of those diseases and the like.  However, I feel that same kinship towards most chronically ill children.  I don't know why.  I'm not chronically ill.  But I do. Because of that, it has always kind of irked me that characters in children's books are never just regular kids with chronic illnesses.  If kids in a book have a chronic illness, that's the entire point of the story. That child is usually just a plot device, not an actual mover of the story, and that disease is usually portrayed incorrectly.  This is probably why in most every story I write, there is a chronically ill character. Even in my his...

I tend to be a fairly regular blogger.  Hey?  What?  I am.  But it just dawned on me that I haven't posted in exactly two weeks.  I think most of that is because my life recently has been consumed by either wasting time (which isn't a good thing), moving towards an accomplishment (like I'm making a dress), or studying for my ASCP exam.  I just want to take that stupid thing and be done with it.  Because I've gotten to the point that all sunshine-like logos look like Paracoccidioides . And the only thing I can think of at dinner tables is what type of false-positive each food at that table would make on a chemical test.  You see, my life has been overtaken by this endeavor.  I will keep you posted on it. Why haven't I been writing any book reviews?  Well, I have been rereading Grapes of Wrath , which, newsflash, is not a short book.  But I have a huge stack of books I need to read in order to review.   But I am one of tho...

So, I've noticed something about Yoga Classrooms.  They always have about the same layout in terms of the people.  It is important you recognize this, so that if you are ever to enter a yoga classroom, you don't mess this up.  Now, the names are assigned based on the usual genders, but in no way is this exclusive.  You can have Humble Harry-s that are girls.  And you can have Mama Maries that are actually Papa Peters.  It's just a generalization. First, the general layout of the classroom: The next important thing is to not actually pay any attention to the size of the individual yoga mats, because it means nothing. Instructor Of course, this may seem obvious.  But this is where the instructor always is.  They talk in a slow and calming voice and a lot of times are much older than you would think yoga instructors are, but are still buff, so no one cares. Humble Harry   Every yoga class has one of these.  These are the guy...

"Remember who the real enemy is." So, the last of the movie reviews that are hanging around there needing to be written...maybe.  Because I redboxed a newer movie last night.  But, whatever.  We all know you can't make media decisions without me, right?  (by the way, that was sarcasm.  I learned this past year that not everyone can tell...and that was kind of sarcasm on top of sarcasm).  So, on my outing with myself, I went to The Hunger Games: Catching Fire . First thing is first: this was an 150% improvement on the first film.  The first movie was basically a royal disappointment.  It was a slaughter of the books that didn't capture the spirit, intelligence, ideas or art of the series with wooden dialogue and completely unnecessary shaky-cam.  It was a commercialized attempt at creating a popular franchise from a popular book series.  And I guess I can't criticize them, because they did make a commercial success.  But ...