Friday Five, Or When the Heck Did July Get Here?

1. Dude, I saw the new KARATE KID movie on Monday, and it was awesome! I'm not saying that it doesn't have its faults - the little kid romance might have been better as a friendship, and it's my personal opinion that the film editor could have shaved 12-20 minutes off the film just by cutting out some extraneous scenes. BUT Jaden Smith is so adorable! He's not a very big kid, so when he takes a beating (and he takes plenty - these kids are brutal to one another), you just want to reach into the screen and carry him away from all the bullies. You can't help but root for him.
   
   Also, the screenplay is above average. Whoever wrote it was fully aware of the other movie and did a pretty good job of messing with people's expectations.
   
   
2. Cherries are in season somewhere in the world, and I have recently discovered my love for them. I'm talking the fresh kind - not the ones that come out of the jar in a florescent color. I think I've eaten more of them this past month than the last 23 years. Um, and I may or may not have some next to my computer right this second. :-D
   
   
3. I've been way busy recently. (I did try to explain why in my last post.) But I was kind of saddened when I realized that I've only read five books this June: Peter Pan in Scarlet, by Geraldine McCaugheran; The Zahir, by Paulo Coelho, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, by Avi; The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls; and Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater. My fav was definitely Charlotte Doyle. Shiver might have beat it except the crazy girl werewolf was named Shelby. It was a little disconcerting.
   
   
4. I had to change the name of the main character for one of my projects (the "E" one - see below). Last week, Some guy that's on the children's NYT bestseller list in three different spots released some sample chapters for his new novel (out in October), and it turns out he named his girl MC the exact same thing. Same spelling and everything. (I won't name names though. Just post links.)
   
   It was sad, but I think I found a new name that I love just as much. Yay!
   
   
5. Obsessed is probably the wrong word, but every week, I make time for So You Think You Can Dance. (This is a new phenomenon for me. I don't usually watch the season as it airs. I usually wait for other people to tell me which routines to watch and then look them on YouTube.) Kent is actually my favorite contestant, personality-wise, but OMG, did you see Alex Wong and Twitch's Hip Hop routine this week????? Words cannot describe the AWESOME.
   
   Here's the video, but watch it fast - I'm sure Fox will make YouTube take down the video sometime soon.
   

5 Fantastic Things About Going to DC

5. Not missing my flight home. I almost did. I didn't read the itinerary closely enough, and I thought my plane took off an hour and a half later than it actually did (ie. the time it arrived at its destination). I checked in less than thirty minutes before its departure time, realized my mistake, and ran. I only tripped once, but I slid across the floor, very surprised at the lack of friction. And I made my flight - JetBlue has forever won loyalty points from me. :-)

4. A trip to Georgetown Cupcake, where I split a couple cupcakes - one red velvet and one pumpkin - with my dear friend and ex-roommate, Angela. We were lucky enough to walk by early on a rainy Friday afternoon, so the wait was just over 10 minutes.

3. A trip to the National Zoo with my other dear friend Ems and her boyfriend Nick. I haven't been to a real zoo since I was eleven. This was an incredibly exciting venture for me. I took well over a hundred pictures. I won't force them all on you now. Just the ones of the baby gorilla climbing on her mom's head. :-)

Other highlights include:

• watching one of the pandas eat a ridiculous amount of bamboo
  
• staring at the prehistoric, epic-sized fish
• seeing a convergence of elephants (we believe they were going to move to another pen for an early dinner)
• visiting the small monkey house, and
  
• catching a prairie dog with his head in a pumpkin.

2. Where the Wild Things Are. The cinema was perfect for a rainy Sunday. I can say with assurance now that it's a quality movie.



That said, I'm not sure how I feel about it. I agree with the filmmakers, who call it "a movie about childhood" rather than a kids' movie. It brought a lot of childhood memories back - and not necessarily good ones either. But I am glad that I saw it. (I even bought the soundtrack, because I kept humming the score by Karen O and the Kids.) It helps you remember how much of you was already there when you were nine, and how much you've forgotten.

1. Old, old friends. There's something fantastic about old friends. Angela, Ems, and I have known each other for ten years. Considering that we're all in our early 20's, that's a significant chunk of time. There's no posturing, and there's definitely no BSing. It's not possible. We've known each other too long. We already know all our fault, and we guess at each other's reactions even before they happen. We understand the history behind a comment without having to be told.

There is much, much love.