I have regressed.

I couldn't help it, I started watching the episode for tonight.
First off: they still hadn't figured out what "The only place where yesterday comes before tomorrow" was. Because they're idiots. Honestly.
Second: Patricia just FLAT OUT KIDNAPS a guy from the hospital. Niiiiice.
Third: Mara has suddenly started caring about her appearance/become a bitch. Okaaaay.
Fourth: I was wondering where the whole need for secrecy had gone, when suddenly Victor showed up. Bless.

Lots of ands and alsos.

This short interlude of fast and furious posts is going to be coming to a (hopefully) temporary pause. Finals week is fast approaching, and I need to start cracking down on that and (DUN DUN DUN) SAT studying. Bleh.

Merlin: This is the third episode of the third season of Merlin that I've seen thus far. Though the episodes came out in the U.K. about half a year ago, I decided against illegally watching them in favor of getting to watch them on an ACTUAL television.
I'm not going to recap them, but I do have some quick comments for those who have already seen them:

Bald Uther!
The sight of Arthur waking up and immediately standing on his feet and whipping out a sword was pretty much one of the best things in the season thus far (...added bonus: no shirt).
Gaius licking his lips is one of the weirdest and most disturbing things ever, but him slapping a bald Uther is PRICELESS. AND THEN UTHER IN HIS HAT. AND THE FARTING.
Oh god, Arthur has donkey ears. Officially my favorite episode.
Beyond Merlin, there's still Off the Map (in an odd way, I like it; it reminds me of Lost, but without the massive stupidity of Jack and all the other melodramatics. ALL. THE. TIME. We'll see though, I bet that Off the Map will start to get annoying soon. Favorite character thus far is the uptight blonde woman)
Also: Castle and House and getting caught up are goals of mine.
And finishing Brideshead Revisited.
And Little Women.
And reading more.
Also also: I give up on House of Anubis, officially. I may still continue watching it every once and a while, unofficially, though I won't be posting recaps or anything. Probably. Nothing is every certain on this blog.
(Also, Fringe started back up today, and while it wasn't the most exciting or horrifying or terrifying episode ever, it had its moments. I have to say, getting to see Olivia show her feelings more and be vunerable around Peter is nice.)

Also, I am becoming mildly addicted to the country music station. This is like my childhood coming back to me, along with summer. God I miss summer.

House of Kidnap/House of Cat-nap & House of Cameras/House of Numbers

House of Kidnap/House of Cat-nap
In the beginning of last night's episode, a black cat shows up, apparently one the "Saboona"-ites found in the basement. (I never mentioned that did I? They have a seriously messed up "secret handshake" that involves them covering one eye with their hand, then saying "Saboona". Yes, it is as stupid as it sounds).

An update

So we have Thing to Discuss.
Firstly, today was my second recital (of three) that I'm doing as a part of the requirements for IB Music. I
don't know if I've mentioned it, but I have a serious issue with presenting things in public. It's taken me a little while, but I've finally gotten over most of my nerves for presentations done in English; and my French is finally at a level where it's not so bad either. But recitals, specifically those on flute, kill me. I also play the tuba in our band, and those solos aren't nearly as bad; I know that I'm not all that great, and honestly, if you're expecting something absolutely beautiful from a tuba solo, you're expectations are out of whack anyway. But a flute is one of those instruments; the ones that people play and are astounding good at. And so when I fail at the flute (which sometimes happens) it is so much worse than when I fail at the tuba.
Anyway though, at the very least it's over, and there's (essentially) no homework for tonight and nothing to freak out about anymore! Yay!

Martin Luther King Day

I don't know what everyone else's experiences with Martin Luther King Day is, as I'm sure it varies hugely in how it's celebrated and acknowledged from neighborhood to neighborhood, much less city to city. I'm not even sure if anything like this is celebrated in other countries (I'm going to guess it's not). But I'm going to talk about my experiences, because, well, this is my blog, and I think that my experiences were actually pretty unique.
From Kindergarten to 4th grade, I went to a school named after Martin Luther King Jr., which prompted the emphasis that you would think it would. By the time I was in 4th grade, I knew all about the Civil Rights Movement; Little Rock Nine, Rosa Parks, Ruby Bridges, and Martin Luther King. We'd watched nearly every movie about that time period as well: Selma Lord Selma, Ruby Bridges, The Ernest Green Story, Our Friend Martin (When I reflect back on it, Selma Lord Selma was probably watched in a later grade, because it was a little more violent). Every year we had a Martin Luther King Assembly, where every grade presented something, be it singing or reciting parts of his I Have A Dream Speech. I can still distinctly remember memorizing parts of his speech so that I could get a "solo". We sang songs like Swing Low, Sweet Chariot and other spirituals (just found out Swing Low, Sweet Chariot has become the unofficial song of the English rugby team - ??). By the time we had hit 4th grade we were writing essays on various topics related to Martin Luther King Jr., something all the older grades did as well. The winning essays were presented at this same assembly.



Our assembly from 2nd grade

 Even after I left King Lab, there was still focus on the Civil Rights Movement - we spent quite a lot of 5th grade learning about it (I think this was when we watched Selma Lord Selma).
What did everyone else do? Was it just a day off from school, or were there assemblies and speeches? I know my sister says they never did anything like this at any of the three schools she's gone to.
I'm inclined to think that we were fairly unique, but maybe that's just because I want to believe that.
In any case, I think it was a great experience to have, especially growing up.
(As a random aside, I just found out John Cusack went to my elementary school!)
(Also, from what I can tell from the school site, the assembly is a three performance event, which sounds pretty much right - I think I can remember having multiple performances)

More TV Shows??

Started watching Off the Map on a whim, and after five seconds, figured out the pairings: Attractive Older Doctor and Bown Newbie end up together, with the extra complication of the woman who showed up at the end of the episode and both of their Troubled Pasts. Black Doctor and Spanish Doctor are possibly already a couple; if not, they will be. The remaining two Newbies will end up together.
I feel like new doctors or patients will have to turn up eventually, because otherwise where would our love triangles/issues come into play? It'd be far too simple if everyone could just be happy with one person.
(If anyone's keeping track, I am now following five shows currently airing, and an additional five that will be starting within the week, plus another one that's been airing and that I'll start watching. Oddly enough, none of them are aired on Thursdays. Also, approximately four of these shows will not be available online after the fact.)

(Additionally, I need to finish Lost sometime, catch up on House, and I'd really like to start watching Dexter, The Big Gang Theory, Mad Men, and Castle)

Pretty Little Liars

Using recaps found via Google and the five episodes up on Hulu, I have successfully been introduced to the world of Pretty Little Liars. I am extremely excited to follow this show, though I am hoping desperately that it doesn't go on for too long - the problem with mystery-based shows is that once the mystery is solved, it's nearly impossible to keep them going, so you have to just keep extending the twists and turns in order to squeeze more seasons out, and honestly, it gets tedious after awhile.
Setting aside my fears for the future, it's actually a pretty good show, and has helped me to figure out my strange addiction to House of Anubis: Anubis has mystery but no suspense or terror, whereas I legit screamed like a small child multiple times when I was watching the 5 episodes on Hulu. In some ways that's good and bad: I never feel the need to skip ahead or close my eyes during Anubis, which is a plus since I hate really scary things. However, it also makes the entire show seem silly and pointless, because I'm really not that invested in the characters or the story. Meanwhile, Pretty Little Liars is absolutely terrifying, and made me call my sister into the room just so I wouldn't be alone while certain scenes were going on.

As far as I can tell, just based off of the Wikipedia synopses (synopsese? synopsisses?), the books and the show differ remarkably in terms of plot. Judging by the brief glimpse I got from the aforementioned synopses, I'm glad. The book plots sound even more complicated, and less likable. This is mainly because it makes me really glad that in the television show, it doesn't seem as though Toby was abusive/raped Jenna, though I may be proven wrong later. Also, he didn't kill himself whichis good, because Keegan Allen is attractive. Not all the time, as sometimes his hair in this series needs a serious haircut/someitmes he looks seriously creeptastic, but other times...yes, please. Noel is also attractive, though perhaps a little too...put-together? I don't know what the word I'm looking for is, but there's something about him that bothers me. He's just a little too generic.

Pretty Little Liars also has a plethora of look-alikes on the show. Besides Jenna, who's the girl from Spectacular!, that musical that Nickelodeon did about a show choir (yes, it was before Glee), which I was mildly in love with, despite the unfortunate haircut of the main guy, and which led to the following video clip:

(which I was also mildly in love with. I also may have had bad taste, I don't know, STOP JUDGING ME.)
Anyway, besides her, there's also a Shia LaBeouf lookalike (who, it turns out, was in that made-for-tv Disney movie, The Luck of the Irish):

 And a Dean-aka-the-one-boyfriend-from-Wizards-of-Waverly-Place lookalike:

 THEY COULD BE THE SAME PERSON.

(Also, this is why I have the IMDB app on my phone. So I can look up what these people have been in previously.)

 

Pretty Little Liars has also led me to The Pierces. After hearing that intro for the first time, I immediately downloaded the entire album. I wish all of their songs were as creepy as Secrets, but they really aren't half bad.

Other media

In news that doesn't involve bad teen remakes, I've been following Top Chef. And Merlin. And will be watching Being Human, Glee, Fringe, Skins, and White Collar when they come back/start.
I'd like to watch Pretty Little Liars, and my friend has convinced me that Modern Family is hilarious, so I might be playing catch-up with those. Maybe Tower Prep as well.
The movie category is progressing nicely. I've arranged to have a mini-movie marathon tomorrow with a friend, and I managed to get around halfway through Brideshead Revisited before I had to stop. So far I'm withholding judgement, as it's very different from how I thought it would be. Hopefully I'll also manage to get to Little Women this weekend.
Meanwhile, my list of Books-to-read is ever-growing, and my Books-Currently-Reading list has grown to...I think it's nearly seven now, at least.
I like Shakira, but I'm not sure I'm sold on all of her songs. I was recently with a friend, listening to the country station while driving, and it made me remember how much I used to love country when I was younger. I'm thinking that might be next on my list of music to get.

And that's the end of this second update of the day!

Anubis, OR I am a failure, get over it.

So I missed another day two days ago yesterday - I had a flute lesson. I am now two episodes behind, and I missed the first ten minutes of this episode as well.
So yesterday's episode started off extremely odd. It opens on Patricia and some weird guy who claimed to be a Private Investigator interested in the whole Joy thing having a conversation, in which Patricia gets freaked out and says she's going to scream, he gently places a business card on the ground, and there is some sincerely awkward, forced dialogue that takes place.
In the course of those two episodes I missed Amber seems to have been brought into the fold of People Who Know Stuff, and now Mick gets all jealous and demands to see more of her (oh, that's going to end well...) Also, it seems as though Patricia has told the new (attractive) English teacher about her suspicions and got him to develop a roll of film containing the real school photo that had been replaced earlier in the series. He decides to confront the principal about all  this, which is never, ever a good idea. You never confront the obviously evil dude without massive back-up.
We now cut to Amber, Nina, and What's-his-face, who are using actual technology to solve issues! Hooray for use of modern, teen-accessible technology!
Of course, Alfie and Jerome, being the obnoxious little turds they are, messed with the recording they had of some little girl (Sara?), who is talking about some bad man, and her dead parents, etc., etc.
Amber forgets that she and Mick had planned to eat lunch together, and he breaks up with her, to the obvious pleasure of Mara, who may not be the nice little smart girl I thought she was.
Attractive teacher is REALLY attractive, and shows up at the house to confront Victor. He is subsequently turned evil, which DUH, how Patricia didn't see that coming is a mystery to me.
What follows is Prospective Parents Day. Things are awkward between both Mick and Amber, and Mick and Mara, who he seems to be mad at for some sort of cheating scandal that happened. There's a scene in there as well that makes it seem like all the teachers are watching Patricia, which is actually creepy, a first for this show. Jerome and Alfie set off a smoke bomb in order to look impressive, and predictably fuck it up.
Meanwhile, Nina and Fabian are helping Nice Housekeeper in baking cakes. There's a quick mention in there about how one oven is stuck shut, and I immediately think: CLUE!
It is not to be however, as it turns out the clue involves a glass chandelier, and when the sun shines through it, there's this weird green glowing thing, and Nina manages to open a magic hiding place with her locket. That locket is like a magical key to everything in this house, I swear. She gets some sort of weird lamp/candlestick thing out of it.
At the end of the episode, Amber, Nina, and Fabian are shocked to discover that the "evil man" from the recirding is VICTOR. DUN DUN DUN.
(So Victor is for sure killing people in order to make a youth serum thing.)

Today's episode involved more clue gathering on Nina, Fabian, and Amber's part, as well as some...unauthorized snooping? Or maybe Amber told Nina that Patricia looked at her diary? Something along those lines. That's the opening. There was also a scene in which the Secret Evil Coven of Teachers initiated the new English teacher. DUN DUN DUN.
Fabian, Amber, and Nina (FAN from now on) FINALLY figure out the whole fireplace thing (old, unopenable oven = fireplace from riddle #120354782); meanwhile, Patricia meets with the P.I., who tells her to bring Nina to him because the necklace is somehow connected to Joy's disappearance.
Patricia makes nice with Amber and Nina, and asks to speak with Nina...ALONE. DUN DUN DUN.
FAN investigate the fireplace further that night, going down some steps and finding a SEKRIT LABORATORY. Thry find the next clue - on the inside of a ring - when suddenly someone comes down the stairs, so they all quick hide in a cupboard and watch as Victor drinks something from a test tube (I KNEW IT! HA!)

Engulfed in a Sequel

So I didn't get a chance to watch House of Anubis tonight because we had pep band. Thankfully it was for the boys' basketball team - no offense towards the girls, but the boys are so much more interesting to watch. They're faster, they manage to foul each other in more interesting ways, etc.
Tonight the Central Hip-Hop Team performed during half-time as well, and I have to say, they were really good. There was one guy who was riveting - I couldn't stop watching him. And another girl had the best facial expressions ever while she was dancing.

Anyway though. Even though I missed Anubis, there has been progress on other fronts: namely, reading. I finished David Sedaris's When You Are Engulfed in Flames, which was actually fairly funny, though I must admit it was a little...disjointed? The stories just didn't seem to have any theme connecting them together, so that was a bit odd.
Anyway, here's a clip of one of his stories. I love that he has no problem talking about things that other people might find awkward or uncomfortable. (Also, as a side note, I had no idea this was what he sounded like, and it's very different from how I thought he would sound).

Meanwhile, I also finished the fifth Thursday Next book, First Among Sequels, by Jasper Fforde.
[Quick summary for those who haven't read the Thursday Next books: they center around a woman named Thursday Next who work(ed) for a branch of government called Special Operations, which handles everything from time travel to book policing. The first book is about her trying to stop an evil man named Acheron Hades from killing Jane Eyre, or any of the other characters within that book. Susequent books deal with her escapades within books - there is a police force called Jurisfiction within books that do all sorts of things. Look, it's confusing, and I'm bad at summarizing, just go read the books.]

Fforde really knows how to pack a lot of plot into a small space. There must've been five or six different issues, all going on at once. What's amazing is less that he manages to fit all of it in there, but that he manages to make it not overwhelmingly confusing. My favorite bit about the Next books is that there are lots of moments where it takes a little bit more brainpower to figure out what's going on - Jasper Fforde doesn't dumb his books down in any way. I also love that when he's explaining certain things, especially in the BookWorld (I'll explain in a second), Thursday will freely admit that she has no idea what's going on/how things work - which is nice, because I never have any idea either.

House o' Anubis

General summary:
The series follows a group of teenagers living in the titled Anubis House, which serves as a boarding house for a British boarding school. Nina, an American girl who had been living with her grandmother after her parents died, leaves the U.S. to attend the school. She arrives at the school right as another resident, named Joy, suddenly leaves without warning.
Unfortunately for her, Nina ends up rooming with Joy's best friend, Patricia. Patricia instantly distrusts Nina, believing she had something to do with Joy's disappearance, and is catty and mean to her (something that no one else in the house calls her out on, sans Fabian).
A couple days later Nina meets an old woman named Sarah/Emily (she seems confused as to her real name) who gives her a necklace and cryptically warns her about the "black bird" or something like that. In any case, it's obvious to the audience she's referring to the stuffed crow the evil landlord of the building keeps in his office.
(We know the landlord is evil because he's seen burning a stuffed animal that Joy "left" behind, after he told Patricia he'd mail it to Joy - oooo, spooky. Also, his name is Victor, which is just an evil name in general.)
Patricia then leads the rest of the people in her house in forcing Nina through what is essentially a hazing. Despite the protests of Fabian, Patricia tells Nina she has to go up into the attic (forbidden, of course) and bring something back.
Nina agrees to do it, steals the attic key, goes up there in the middle of the night while everyone else looks on, is predictably locked in the attic by Patricia, and has a momentary freak-out when Victor uses the spare attic key to go upstairs and check everythnig out. Luckily the weird necklace that the crazy old lady gave to Nina opens a secret passage, which Nina conveniently falls into, thus hiding her from Victor! Woo.
All of this leads to: Nina discovering a potrait in the attic with Fabian, which leads them to pry open a stair, under which they find a key. Also, Patricia eventually realizes (via the nice housekeeper) that Nina had nothing to do with Joy's disappearance.
Meanwhile, there's this other separate love triangle/square going on with the other members of the house that I can't be bothered to write here.
Episode summary:
I missed the very beginning of this episode, so when I started watching Patricia and Mara (the resident house genius/math girl) are talking and getting ready for a party Mick and Amber (the shallow, slightly stupid, but attractive couple) are throwing. Patricia admits she was wrong about Nina, then decides to...go through her stuff? Um, okay...
She finds the two keys, and Nina's diary, which she then reads, and finds out (surprise, surprise), Nina thinks she's a mean person! Wow, that's a revelation, since you just spent the past week or so accusing her of stuff she didn't do for absolutely no reason!
Two things on this: 1. Nina is a failure at hiding things. I mean really? A conspicuous sparkly box under your bed and you keep all the weird secret shit you've found AND you're diary in there? and 2. Patricia has no right to be angry, since she's going through Nina's stuff - and it's all true anyway! She should be happy Nina didn't write, "Patricia is the world's biggest bitch!" in all capital's in the diary!
In this episode of House of Anubis, Nina and Fabian go upstairs to the attic again, using the party as cover. They find out what it is the key they previously found unlocks - a box, with a weird puzzle-like thing with heiroglyphics on it, and an old, old, OLD tape-thingy.They go back down to the party, where the goofy weird kid (named Alfie) has gotten his head stuck in a moose.
Victor figures out someone's gone up to the attic because he rigged a little booby trap with a feather, and so he stops the party and asks who took the key and has been going up in the attic. This is when Alfie decides to mention that he's feeling dizzy, etc., and while Victor deals with that, Nina puts the key on the floor upstairs. Now Victor has no excuse to go through their things, though he does ground them all.
Nina and Fabian try to figure out the heiroglyphics, to no avail. This leads to the best line in the series thus far, said by Fabian about the heiroglyphics:
"It's like the Internet's just never heard of them."
F & N go to visit F's uncle, who's an antiques dealer, and show him all the stuff, hoping he can tell them more about it. While he's almost completely useless, this is the moment when I finally realized that Nina kind of reminds me of my French exchange student, with her facial expressions, so it's still momentous.

Episode ends with Patricia overhearing Victor and the policeman from a previous episode (whom she reported Joy's disappearance to, and who pretended to have called Joy and her family to check on them) have a SUPER SEKRIT powow in the kitchen.

Conclusions: Still vaguely addictive, though it's appeal is steadily waning...the lack of a sincerely hot guy on the show is slowly killing me, I must admit, and even Nina's bizarre facial movements won't be able to keep me watching this for long.
(I looked up House of Anubis on Wikipedia for a plot summary, and couldn't believe there were 60 episodes planned for the first season, until I realized each thirty minute episode is listed as two episodes on Wikipedia...)

Massive info dump

I'm thinking that maybe I'll actually just start constistently blogging about books on here...I mean, I really don't have a lot of other things that I feel it necessary to talk about on a regular basis, as most of the rants I would write on here always end up taking so long to write that by the time I'm halfway through writing them I'm no longer angry, and then I just really don't have any motivation to finish them. So. Books. Reviews. Maybe some movie-ish stuff? I don't know. Some random updates on life too I guess.
ANYWAY: Might as well start now!

Book #4 of the year: The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov
Normally I don't like to talk too much about books we read in English because we discuss/write so much about them in class that it just feels like I'm doing more English homework when I have to talk about them outside of class, but this year I ended up with a teacher who isn't the best at getting good discussions going, so I need some sort of outlet to discuss.
The longer I spent thinking about this play, the more I liked it. At first, I absolutely hated the way everyone in the play was so wrapped in their own little worlds and disconnected from one another, but I have to say that as time went on, and after reading the final two acts, I warmed up to the play. I read somewhere that Chekhov considered this play to be a comedy, something which also made it more bearable. Thinking of this play as a serious tragedy makes it annoying and frustrating, while thinking of it as a comedy makes the melodramatics and ignorance of the characters funny and...well, it's a little bit like The Importance of Being Earnest in that I see a little bit of the ridiculousness in the characters there show up here. I do sympathize with these characters more, however - they're not supposed to be completely comical.
I thought it was fascinating to think about the way that Chekhov makes characters themselves into symbols of the different periods of Russia, but at the same time doesn't make it obvious, or even a focus within the play. Firs and Yasha are great examples of Russia pre-Industrial Revolution and post-, but this isn't really made super obvious. Instead of either of them being a main character, we see their differences subtly.

In other random media news:
1. I have entered into one of my "more music" phases, where I've just been downloading and buying music all over the place in order to just be more...not well-rounded, but something similar to that. So Shakira is the most recent addition to our iTunes, with Mika preceding her. I really enjoyed Mika, but Shakira I can't really get into - we'll see, but she may end up being like Jesse McCartney (don't judge), with a few songs I like amid the mass of songs I don't really care about.
2. Movies! We've recently acquired quite a few, so Sense & Sensibility is going to be watched soon, as will Little Women hopefully. And Brideshead Revisited, which I'm extremely excited to see for the first time.
3. Television: Everything's back on now, so that's nice. Merlin starts up on SyFy soon, White Collar's back on USA, and Glee and Fringe should be returning this/next week? Something like that. Going to continue with House of Anubis (...) and maybe I'll look at Tower Prep as well, though I'm a little iffy on that one. I don't understand why it is that networks like Nick and Cartoon Network make their website so screwed up in terms of schedules and shit, so that I can't figure out when anything is on, and consequently miss it, and then also can't watch them because they don't but them up online and wow this sentence is long. Whew.
(Also, when is the new Scooby Doo series coming back on? I kind of like it...)

The House of Anubis

I came down to our basement last night to find my sister watching this:

(except, you know, the actual show, not the trailer)

So I sat down to watch, because you never know, sometimes there are hot guys in Nick shows.
I'm not sure what it is about the show - probably the mystery element of it - but despite the horrible acting, cheesy music and camerawork, and a plot that is iffy, I still kind of wanted to keep watching it.
So I did, tonight, and...I still don't know how I feel. Nina and Patricia need some serious acting lessons; really, most of the girls do, though Mara isn't that bad, and I'm sure it's hard to do anything with the dumb blonde. Meanwhile, Jerome looks weird (anyone else reminded strongly of Bruce Jenner?), and Mick is just kind of blah. I find I really don't care about him at all - like he's a peripheral character, instead of a main one. Alfie is nonoffensive, and Fabian is actually not half bad.
Anyway, here were my thoughts on the second episode:
 - The facial expressions of Nina are always off. Like, seriously - they are never appropriate for the situtation. In fact, most of her acting is like that.
 - I don't understand why Nina always falls into the secret little room; you'd think after the second time she would've figured it out.
 - Victor really likes fire doesn't he?
 - Seriously, Patricia didn't think to hide the stupid folder somewhere? Why are people always such idiots?
 - Also: why exactly do Fabian and Nina not wait until Victor is actually asleep in his own room? Wouldn't that make more sense? Of course, then there'd be no drama, but still. Also, I for sure would've followed to hide in one of the boys' rooms after that whole thing, not gone upstairs when I knew Victor was awake.
 - Another issue: there's no way in hell they would be able to remove a floorboard with that little noise and that little effort unless it wasn't nailed down in the first place, and these were really, really new stairs.
 - Not all my thoughts on the show are bad: I like how Fabian takes a photo of the heiroglyphs with his phone, since that's accurate to what a real teenager would do. And it's not in this episode, but in the last one they showed the science class the kids were in, and these kids are actually learning things suited for their age! Pascal's Law! That's actually something you learn in high school chemistry! Hooray!



All in all, The House of Anubis is a totally unbelievable show (and not in a good way), and yet I still kind of want to continue watching it.
(Another weird thing about the show is the scheduling; it's really odd, with a new episode every night for the week of January 10th, but none in between those episodes and the two-night premier.)