Grumblies in My Tumbly

The Best Part of Today #31:

Getting a free bagel from a loyalty card.

I've noticed that a bunch of my BPoT's are essentially materialistic, like finding the gift card, and today's free bagel. But who say's there's anything wrong with a little material enjoyment. I'm no puritan. I just say enjoy life, in all its forms.

Plus, this is a fulfillment of Awesome Thing #369: Finally getting something free off your loyalty card (http://bit.ly/bNMBWM). You know, those flimsy little cards that are further mangled by, on average, +/- 10 punches that represent coffees, bagels, scoops of ice cream. But somewhere down the road, you will have involved yourself in a capitalist society enough to merit a reward. Like a free bagel. Hey, we're all a part of it, whether we like it or not. Might as well get the most out of it.

Third reason this was awesome is that, like the gift card, it was unexpected. I have an hour an a half break between two classes in the same building, so I usually hang out in Wilbur Cross, the office building across the street, where I get a coffee and/or a little something for a lunch as I do some extant homework. Today, though, I had no money on me and was just going to sit out the stomach grumblies as I finished up some reading. But then, thinking of all the thing in my id pouch that weren't money, I remembered my newly punched out bagel card, just when I really needed it. Nice.

ps. As the title implies, I am eagerly awaiting the new Winnie the Pooh movie. Are you?

http://bit.ly/hMdr9i

Thirtayy

The Best Part of Today #30:

Finding a $25 dollar gift card to Borders on the ground.

Despite being the first day back at school after Thanksgiving vacation, it was a pretty good day. There were several great things I could picked for today, but the serendipitous discovery of a free gift card to Borders was certainly the most monetarily profitable. I could have been to somewhere totally un-useful to me, like Dick's Sporting Goods or something but no. It was to a bookstore. The only way it could have possibly been more personally suited was if it were to J.Crew or something.

So that was nice. I also went to a great improv show with a friend who introduced me to her attractive friend with a cool name, and saw a couple more friends at the show. Then I watched an episode of Avatar as I unpacked my duffle bag. Not too shabby, day.

Would you look at that

I realized that I posted yesterday, when I normally don't post on weekends. But I guess that's just a product of the following:

The Best Part of Today #29:

Being on vacation long enough that I forget what day it is.

Yesterday was such a fantastic day anyway, that it needed a post. I decided to at least make the weekend symmetrical by posting today as well. Despite just achieving the above realization, it is already time to go back to school. Oh well. Only 3 weeks until month-long Christmas Break! Let the countdown begin!

This time it was James' fault

Well technically it was the fault of seeing the movie Tangled at 10:20 and not getting back until now. We figured no one would bring their kids at that hour, but we were wrong. Go figure.

The Best Part of Today #28:

Getting my best friend back.

One of them anyway. The one with a y chromosome. The one with two x's has always been there. And so has the other one, I guess, but we both just need to grow up a little, cry a little, laugh to make it better, and change a lot. But not too much. Things are almost the way they almost were, but better.

The Glory of Vacation

The Best Part of Today #27:

An almost pajama day.

After a sleepover in my sister's room, we both woke up at noon and had leftover apple pie for breakfast. The earlier part of the day was taken up by playing toontown and watching a spongebob marathon until about 3 in the afternoon. It would have been a pajama day had I decided to walk my dog in pajamas, but seeing as it was about 38˚, I decided against that plan. I even got some homework in, before watching HP 6 and playing more Toontown. A nice typical vacation day, I would say.

Family Fun with Food

The Best Part of Today #26:

Food.

It was Thanksgiving today, so naturally that meant a lot of food. Turkey and caramelized onions was my favorite, followed closely by green beans and crispy onions. We even played apples to apples with the whole family. Then Sara and I played Toontown, an online game in which you throw pies at cogs; essentially mechanical fun sucking businessmen. All in all, a very fulfilling day.

It's all Pawel's fault!

So I have an alarm set an everything to remind myself to write in my blog, but here I am, playing Halo and COD with Pawel and he just distracts me from writing in my blog! (With his charm, he says.)

The Best Part of Today #25:

Destroying Pawel at all the games we played!!!!

Ok, so this isn't entirely true. But i still beat him a couple times so that's good enough for me. Plus I stole his mocha at molten java multiple times. FTW.

Yum

The Best Part of Today #24:

Craving chocolate when I was doing hw, and Sara giving me a york peppermint patty.

Chocolate speaks louder than words. That is all.

Magical Discovery!

The Best Part of Today #23:

Deciding not to buy an expensive book, then magically discovering it elsewhere for cheaper.

I decided to buy the majority of my books from my local bookstore. Even though this means I will have to pay a little more because I don't get coupons or promotions at my local bookstore, at least I'm supporting small business instead of huge corporate ones. It's also closer and saves gas. Ironically, I went on errands with my mom after I came back from my bookstore, and she needed to get something at Borders. But after doing our rounds at Borders, Michaels, and T.J Maxx, I sat down to read my new book (Catching Fire, which I had brought with me) inside T.J. Maxx's toy section. It was there, wedged in between Yoga videos and Ni Hao Kai Lan books, I found the third installment of the Hunger Games series, Mockingjay. FTW.

Blame it on Harry Potter

Thursday and Friday were completely consumed by seeing Harry potter at midnight on Thursday Night/Friday Morning. That's why this counts for both days.

The Best Part of Today #21/22:

Having something awesome be even more awesome than you thought.

How could one not be excited about seeing Deathly Hallows Part 1? Exactly. Even if were mediocre, like some of its predecessors, it would still be a momentous experience. My friends an I pondered over where the filmmakers were going to chop it in half. It had to be on something very dramatic and with a cliff hanger quality in order to be effective. But as the film progressed past all of our proposed mid-points, our already bubbling excitement boiled over. The fact that it was the best Harry Potter film yet is a gross understatement. I only hope that it is a trend setter and not just role model for Part 2.

It's time, it's time!

The Best Part of Today #20:

Seeing the first tree with Christmas lights on it.

It was right next to Starbucks, which was also playing Christmas music today. Poor Thanksgiving. After Halloween, everyone gets into the "Holiday Spirit," of which Thanksgiving is only a stop on the road to something better. I for one am very excited to go home for a long, blissful 10-day week and bake apple pies and have the first fires of the season in the fireplace, and see Harry Potter a bazillion times and play Halo and Call of Duty. Yup. just a nice traditional Thanksgiving.

Curious

I could have sworn I posted yesterday. Apologies.

The Best Part of Today [Monday] #18:

Doing significant work on my novel.

As I mentioned before, I haven't worked on my novel in quite some time. The idea has just been bouncing around in my head. I'd like to say to say it was growing, but not significantly. It just stopped in to say hi occasionally. But yesterday, I did a quantifiable amount work on the first chapter and it felt great. Not to mention, the fact that the assignment itself isn't due until tomorrow, and I was working on it much in advance, as I have not have time for lately. I wrote the whole thing in 3 small 7x5" notebooks, and the first chapter was only 6 of these short pages, and most it was exposition that I have since chosen not to include in the first chapter. Yet, the new draft of the first chapter turned out to be 6 typed manuscript pages. I thought that was funny.

The Best Part of Today #19:

Stella.

This morning my alarm woke me at 8am, despite not having class until 11. I lounged in bed for about an hour and then took a nice long shower. But the nicest thing was deciding to turn on the tv while I got dressed and being spot on time for the beginning of a show I had not seen in very long while. Stella, with David Wain, Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black, is a hilarious show about 3 grown apartment roommates who are always wearing suits. I had not seen since a friend introduced it to me freshman year and it brought a rush of happy nostalgia to my morning.

Macbeth! (you liar...)

The Best Part of Today #17:

Disproving the theatre's Macbeth superstition.

As you may or may not know, it is considered extremely unlucky for someone invoke the name of Shakespeare's scottish king in a theatre while there is a production going. Many believe it cause all sorts of unpleasant circumstances from minor mishaps to near-death catastrophes. Today, however, one of our actors (Ryan Wantroba!) said it not once but twice! We believers were all quite upset with him, except for the fact that the show then went 99.9% perfectly. (Only one dropped line, and switched suitcase account for missing .1%; nothing major.) Not to mention we then ordered chinese food and watched the Princess and the Frog.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable day, weekend, and overall experience through the whole show of Arsenic and Old Lace, and now that it's over I'm beginning to feel the first pangs of sadness. Fortunately, my excitement for HP7P1 (coming out in 4 days) is doing a good job of masking my sadness for the end of the show.

Potato!

The Best Part of Today #16:

Learning a trick on a rubik's cube.

It was hard for me to not say "everything" as the answer because today was thoroughly fantastic. I had a delicious omelet at Whitney for breakfast. Today's show went splendidly except for the kitchen door flat almost falling down (which was still great because it got the audience to laugh while it was was falling, and then again when they could hear us power screwing it together). We even played monopoly backstage during a slow scene (not slow enough to play a whole game of monopoly, but that't probably for the best). Then we all got dinner together again. Then I went my friend Sara's room and we payed Apples to Apples and complained about how it was only 6:30 but felt like at least 9. After running out of cards, we watched Robin Hood: Men in Tights with tea and popcorn. After that was over we played N64 Super Smash Brother and Mario Kart. Sara yelled "potato!" when she meant to say "tomato" in super smash, and then we watched her abridged version of Lord of the Rings (if you can see the connection between these two statements, you win the awesome prize of nerdiness (no sarcasm whatsoever).) Can you see a way this day could have been better?

Well now, isn't this nice.

Sorry about yesterday. I had to study away the last hours of the day during which time I usually blog. Anyway!

The Best Part of Today (Thursday) #14:

Looking up in the sky and seeing a shooting star that very same moment.

It was beautiful. I was walking back from rehearsal late at night, it was very dark and quiet and the sky was beautifully clear. I spontaneously decided to look up at the sky as I was walking across the green in front of my building and that very moment a meteor streaked across the sky.It wasn't in the corner of my eye but directly above me! It was magical.

The Best Part of Today #15:

[Other than Arsenic opening today and going fantastic,] the fact that our amateur sets which didn't seam together nicely gave me a perfect full-length peep-hole from backstage.

Even though I've seen the action play out at every rehearsal, finally seeing it onstage in front of an audience was so much more wonderful. And our rather precarious sets were somewhat warped from the storage process, putting cracks in between the flats just large enough to see through but not to be seen through. Proof that every mishap in life has a purpose.

Getting rid of brain crack...for real this time

The Best Part of Today #13:

Finally showing my first and most cherished story to a group of constructive peers.

I wrote a story years ago that I am very fond of, but have never been able to force myself to revise, nor have I been bold enough to show to anyone. I did use it twice as a writing sample application though. Once for a writing camp, and the second time, I rewrote the beginning and submitted it in order to get into my creative class. But i have never told anyone about it and asked for suggestions and criticism, until today. I turned very red and started sweating profusely as I tried to summarize the story and failing miserably. But it got better as the members of my peer group asked me questions about things I had left out, allowing me to focus on certain I had already figured out, rather trying to present a cohesive picture in one go. It was very nerve-wracking, but ultimately fruit-bearing as well.

fo find out what brain crack is, and how it is relevant and not completely random, click below:

http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2006/07/071106.html

No dear, this makes twelve!

The Best Part of Today #12:

Free books.

Plain and simple. Nothing better than free books. A whole box of them. And the box was addressed to one of my other favorite teachers, besides the one who was giving me the books. Proof that good people know each other.

Arsenic and Old Lace opens in 3 days...so excited!!!

Just Kidding

The Best Part of Today #11:

Waking up to a window bright with reflected light.

Yup, you guessed it (and if you didn't, no worries, because I'm about to tell you.) I wondered why it was so bright when I woke up this morning, especially since the weather forecast had called for clouds and a rainy, "wintry mix." As if playing a joke on us, or more specifically weathermen, Storrs, CT was sugared with snow instead of slathered with slush. It was a two-part joke though, as the fluffy white sheen was soon transmuted into a muddy gray mush, fulfilling the earlier promise for rain. But it wasn't all bad. Before going in to work I normally nab a coffee from the starbucks across and down the street from my office to stave off the 2pm snoozies, but I didn't want to have travel any more than was necessary today. While I was there, I remembered seeing a coffee pot in one of the green room cupboards by the sink and the mini-fridge. For a while, I was too enmired in work to get away and substantiate my remembrance, but when I finally found time to explore, I discovered the pot out on the counter with a full pot already made! It was almost too good to be true when I found an eeyore-shaped mug in the cupboard and half-and-half in the fridge. It would have been too much if the fortuitous circumstances fell cruelly short to only almost everything I needed for my perfect cup of coffee, but I even found two real sugars concealed by heaps of splenda and equal packets. And it didn't cost me a dime.

Saving the Day

The Best Part of Today Number #10:

Wondering why my alarm didn't wake me up and realizing I was actually an hour ahead of it.

Daylight savings...why couldn't this happen every day? Discovering that I miraculously gained another hour before rehearsal this morning was nothing short of phenomenal. I was able to slowly enjoy my breakfast and even get some work done. Imagine that.

It has a light side and a dark side, and it holds the world together

Part of the reason I joined Dramatic Paws was because I missed theatre from high school, and everything it entailed. Part of the production of it all was the building and painting of the sets, and I finally got a chance to do it today for the first time in years. Of course, no day of improvised student-run construction would be complete without a few accidental injuries.

The Best Part of Today #9:

Making improvised band-aids out of duct tape.

As Chris, one of our directors, aptly stated "Necessity is the mother of invention." This pertained to more than just my makeshift paper "tape measure" (part of the...charm, let's say, of a student run organization is the lack of professional materials, and the necessity to improvise). I impaled my left little finger on a rogue screw and sliced my right thumb on a paint container, and was sadly wanting of bandaids. Luckily I remembered from my high school techie days that duct creates an even better seal than a real bandaid. That way, when I finally arrived at rehearsal and a cast member asked me how it went, I was able to give a duct-taped thumb's up that carried everything I needed to say.

What smurfs and candy companies have in common

With halloween just past and we're all delving into our acquired candy hoardes, I'm sure some of have been pondering the thus-far unanswered question about blue raspberry flavored candy. The candy companies must have known that by now everyone has seen through their clever ruse: the blue raspberry is not a fruit! Certainly blackberries closely resemble raspberries and have slightly darker shade of violet-blue than blueberries, but nothing comes close to the electric blue of the so called "Blue Razzberry."

That's why The Best Part of Today #8 is

finding out what smurfs are good for.

You heard me right. Smurfs. Those tart little blue imps that are actually about the size of large blackberries. What do you think happened to them after the 80's (Boomerang reruns not included.) They had to go somewhere, as a friend of mine decided after my ingestion of a large blue razzberry lollipop that left my mouth "smurf blue."

Unfortunately, Smurfs fell under the protection of S.P.E.W and could no longer be used to make delicious blue treats, so candy companies had to resort to the use of Rubus Leucodermis, or the Whitebark Raspberrry, later known as the "Blue Raspberry" for its associations with the previously smurf-produced flavor.

That's the best oily pelican I've ever seen...

Best Part of Today #7:

Being told I make an awesome oily pelican.

Today after Arsenic and Old Lace rehearsal got out early, one of my friends in the cast invited me to Agents of Improv. I'd been meaning to go for as long as I had been meaning to join Dramatic paws (basically since freshman year). I had homework I could do, but it wasn't due tomorrow, so I couldn't resist. It was one of the singularly most fantastic nights of my life. (This post still counts for Thursday because I didn't get back to my room until after it was Friday!) It was also the first time I had ever played long form improv and our team ended up being called Team Oily Pelican. The game necessitated interruptions based on the nature of our team name, and well...I went with it.

Your order had dispatched!

The Best Part of Today #6:

Buying a book from my favorite author in the world off Amazon. co.uk

Ok, so I haven't bought it yet. But I fully intend to, so it makes no difference what tense I use. There is perhaps nothing I would like to do more than buy this book, especially since it is currently in my "basket" (not cart) and will be "dispatched" (rather than shipped) as soon as I order it. I say words like cart and shipped with the same nasally, displeased tone that my high school french teacher would use to say words like celebration instead the nicer-sounding congreg-ah-see-ohn. But unfortunately I must save my presently dismal funds for other matters.

And, in fact, there is something I would like to do more than buy the book: enter the sleuthing contest to win the first ever signed copy of the book. Unfortunately I'll have to make do with the joys of european amazon, because the contest is only open to the UK.

Awesome x3

I missed Friday and Monday. But it wasn't my fault I swear! CarlyJanee Davino, one of my favorite people ever, came up to visit me at Uconn on Friday and then we went to Boston see my other favorite people ever, James Traggianese and Caity Booton. So that was great. But...

The Best Part of {Friday}:

Finding out I was in a secret club I didn't know about.

Carly, our friend Molly and I, spent our Friday sitting on the floor of Uconn bookstore's young adult section because 1) were nerds (the best kind) and 2) Carly introduced me to the world of Nerdfighteria and I found a Nerdfighter note in my new Paper Towns book! If you want to understand what I'm actually talking about, go to youtube.com/vlogbrothers.

The Best Part of {Monday}:

Classical Music playing and knowing what piece it is.

The other best part of Monday was not having any classes and still being Boston. Caity and I had breakfast at an Au Bon Pain and they were playing classical music! Ok, so I know that I said the best part of Tuesday was hearing the LOTR score in Whitney, but I didn't officially start TBPoT until Wednesday so it doesn't count! The funny thing is, I was so excited about the music as ABP because I knew the piece, but now I'm sure because I can't remember exactly. The quandaries of not posting on time, it is!

The Best Part of Today (finally):

Being told a weird quirk you have is actually a career asset.

Today I had an interview for a class which would entail working on the editorial staff of the Long River Review, Uconn's literary magazine. While explaining my copy editing experience to the interviewer, Penelope Pelizzon, exclaimed that it sounded like I could copy edit in my sleep! After a moment's hesitation I told her about the journal where I record spelling and grammatical errors I find in published works. I didn't know if this would be seen as a pretentious half-truth or just dismissed as worthless, as no publishing house would reprint a novel because it spelled "sen" instead of "seen" (page 88 of The Time Garden by Edward Eager.) But then Ms. Pelizzon laughed and said "You're Long River dream editor. I'm sure we'll have a place for you." Results posted next week - I'll let you know.