January 2010 Roundup February 8, 2010

OK I know I’ve been getting behind once again. So here we go.

Work: I received two awards in January, both of which were completely unexpected…the 2010 Rookie of the Quarter award (corporate) and the Winter quarter 2010 “Going the Extra Mile” award (for my campus). Pretty sweet, if you ask me.

School: School is school. I have an A after the first 3 weeks (grades were posted the other day) but we just submitted the topics for our term papers (which are worth 45% of our final grade). My paper is (hopefully) going to be on why two-year colleges/technical colleges/career colleges/whatever you want to call them are better equipped to provide education for non-traditional aged students. There’s actually quite a bit of research on it, as well as many, many articles in some of the higher education journals I’ve been perusing from time to time. I’m pretty confident that it will be an awesome paper.

Life: What life? My life still consists of driving, sleeping, work, and school. Hopefully I’ll be able to actually see some friends *in person* sometime soon.

Football: After the Packers got ripped off (that was totally a facemask) I got the satisfaction of watching the Saints beat the Vikings. And, by the way, the Saints totally deserved to win the Super Bowl and I’m glad they did. Watch out though. 2010 is going to be the Packers’ big year.

Movies: The only movies that I saw with my sister were “Legion” and “The Lovely Bones”, neither of which were that fantastic. Legion had too much Jesus and The Lovely Bones had too much pedophilia and LSD. But yeah.

Hopefully February will be more exciting.

Back to School! January 13, 2010

Ah, school. The packed lunch. The cheesy assemblies. The bus. The bells. Brings back such memories…

Oh wait. I don’t have most of those things.

I have started school again, however. I officially became a graduate student on Monday and I’ll be working on my Masters until late 2011, assuming I stay on track.

Each quarter I’ll be taking two classes, with the exception of this quarter, where I’m taking only one class. So from now until the middle of March, I’m taking a class about Theory and Practice in Masters Studies. Basically it’s a research methods class. Pretty boring, yes, but also important. It also gets me back into the swing of being in school after being out of classes for 9 months.

This is going to be an adventure. I can feel it. Also, all that work I put in to get rid of my caffeine addiction is going to go down the toilet.

Review: Avatar January 3, 2010

Ok, I know that this is my second post in a day so I’m going to keep it short-ish, but I wanted to get my thoughts down while the movie is fresh in my mind.

Avatar is currently in theaters. IMDB gives it an 8.8/10. I had very high expectations for this film for a couple of reasons. First of all, it’s a James Cameron film, and I loved Titanic. Second, the music was done by James Horner, who has scored some big-hitting films as well (music is important to me in the movies I watch). Third, the cast was virtually unknown to me except for Sigourney Weaver, so it was a chance to get a look at some fresh talent. Obviously the fact that the movie is largely CGI was a big draw for me as well.

I remember when one of the first totally-CGI movies came out…”Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within”. I loved that movie, because I thought it was awesome that they could make an animated character look so real. However, Avatar blew all other versions of CGI that I’ve ever seen out of the water. It was nearly impossible to distinguish the CGI from normal filming. The only clue most of the time was the fact that the Na’vi were nine feet tall and blue. Overall the special effects in the movie were phenomenal and it really shows how much the technology has progressed. The battle scenes were especially fantastic, as were the scenes where various characters were flying on the Banshees.

If you know me, you know that I love movies with deeper meanings. This was one of the reasons why I loved “District 9″. Avatar had a deeper meaning beyond what was being portrayed on the screen. One can draw parallels between the humans invading the Na’vi homeworld of Pandora and the British invasion of Australia or any number of other conquests throughout history. So while the base plot itself wasn’t all that original, the way that it was portrayed was done very well.

I do have a couple of criticisms. First of all, all of the soldiers seemed to be American. You’d think that, with an expedition to a new planet, there would be at least a couple of people with non-American accents. Second (and this is somewhat of a spoiler, so if you haven’t seen the film skip to the next paragraph)…what happened to Scully’s original Banshee? When he jumped off of his original one to catch the orange one, did the first one just fly away? Earlier scenes in the movie made it seem like bonding with one of these creatures was a very sacred and important part of life, so it was a little disappointing to see him just ditch off like that.

Overall, Avatar was a great way for me to start off my movie-viewing year. Stunning special effects, great acting, a wonderful story, and a social commentary all work together. I would not be at all surprised to see this film win several awards. I give it a 9.5/10.

2009: The Year in Review AND 2010: A Look Forward January 2, 2010

Yes, I realize we’re past the New Year now, but I just got home, so this is when I’m posting. It’s my blog, I’ll do what I want.

2009 was a whirlwind year for me. A lot of good and bad things happened (mostly good):

• Obviously first on this list…I graduated college! May 13 was my grad date and I officially have my B.A. in Psychology. Four long years of papers, tests, expensive textbooks, and trekking across the huge University of Minnesota campus…it was worth it, though, and I really do miss being a college kid.
• I went to two MACURH/NACURH conferences. No Frills 2009 was at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, and NACURH 2009 was at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Both were awesome overall. I did get a touch of food poisoning at NACURH but it only kept me out of the festivities for one night. I got to run the MACURH boardroom at the national conference for a bit, which was a rush, and I got my NRHH Silver Pin. I think that the thing I miss most about college is participating in NACURH/MACURH, but I still keep in contact with a lot of the friends that I made over the 10 conferences/4 years that I was with the organization so I am trying to keep up with the constantly changing organization.
• In 2009 I traveled over 5,000 miles in a summer for the third year in a row. This year I went to Tucson (flying from MSP via Dallas) and Washington, DC (drove). It was the fourth time I’ve been to DC and I kind of did my own thing while my family went to the most popular musems (Air and Space, American History, Natural History). I hit up the National Art Gallery for a day, which was probably my favorite part, and I also trekked over to the National Crime and Punishment Museum. I’m starting to learn the Capitol Hill area, which is kind of scary. But also kind of cool.
• I got my first real job in 2009…kind of. It’s the job I work at now, and I love the company I work for. Yes, my commute is two hours daily (an hour each way) because I work in St. Louis Park, MN, but it’s worth it. Working in a college setting is what I want to do.
• Speaking of that, I was accepted to grad school in 2009…though I won’t be starting until 2010, so more on this below.
• Finished my third NaNoWriMo novel! That bumps me up to a 75% completion rate over the four years that I have participated. Hopefully 2010 will end up in a win as well.
• I had the opportunity to see two of my favorite bands, The Killers (for the first time) and Mindless Self Indulgence (for the second time) when they came to Minneapolis. If you get the chance, I highly recommend both of them.
• I won a “real life” award! At the holiday party for work, I was presented with the Team Player of the Year award, one of five different awards that are presented each year. I didn’t even know that I was nominated, so needless to say it was quite the surprise (similar to when I got my NRHH Bronze and Silver pins). Pretty awesome.
• Another big event of 2009 was Richard Dawkins! The 2008-09 CASH board worked for nearly a year to bring him to the U of MN to speak, so when he finally got there, it was amazing. We got to have lunch with him and we very nearly sold out at Northrop Auditorium. CASH, after paying the various fees and bills associated with the engagement (though, graciously, Dr. Dawkins spoke for free and the Richard Dawkins Foundation paid for his travel and hotel because he brought a film crew), made a roughly $8,000 profit. Some of this money was donated to the Richard Dawkins Foundation, Camp Quest (a free-thinking summer camp put on by the MN Atheists), and the Minneapolis Public Schools (to be used specifically for science education), but a good portion of it was put into CASH’s budget for 2009-2010 to send members to conferences and jump-start programming for the year. From what I’ve seen, it’s been put to good use.

Enough about 2009…moving on.

2010 is going to be a busy year full of new things (at least, I hope so). Here are some of my goals:

• Start grad school. This one is easy. My first class starts on January 11, 2010 (roughly a week from now). I’m super excited. The technical name of my degree is a Masters in Education with a specification of Leadership in Higher Education, and it will (hopefully) prepare me even more to work in a higher education setting.
• Move out. As you may know, I don’t make a lot of money at my job. In fact, with my student loan payments, I can’t afford even the cheapest rent. Hopefully that will change soon (more on that another day).
• Travel. I’d like to go on a camping trip this summer. I’ve been toying around the idea of hiking a portion of either the Mountain-Bay trail in WI (goes from Green Bay, WI to Wausau, WI) or part of the Superior Hiking Trail (up near Duluth, MN). The main obstacles in my way are that I still need a lot of equipment for a multi-day hiking trip…and I can’t find anyone who’s willing to spend four or five days out in the woods. Oh well. The search continues. Eventually I would like to hike/camp in the Badlands in SD and go to Burning Man in NV. A girl can dream…
• As you can see, this goal list is unfinished. A year is a long time, and I want to be able to accomplish a lot. I add goals as I go.

There you have it. This has run on a little longer than I anticipated, but so it goes. Happy start of 2010!

Movie Review: “The Descent” December 30, 2009

So something I’m trying to get back into is writing reviews of the movies that I watch. It’s common knowledge that I am a horror movie junkie, so it seems only appropriate that my first review on this site is a horror flick.

First up is ” The Descent”. I’ve always been meaning to watch this ever since it came out in 2005, but never actually got around to it until I found it in the $5 bin at Wal-Mart. I thought, “score!” and bought it immediately. I tend to agree with IMDB, and they give it a 7.4/10. As a point of reference, I watched the unrated version, as opposed to the theatrical version.

The movie started out pretty well, but it was a little slow after the opening 10 minutes or so. Not to give too much away, a group of 6 women, who all love the outdoors, decide to go caving in North Carolina (at least, that’s where I think it was…the license plate on their SUV said NC). There wasn’t much action until about an hour into the 100-minute movie, but then it was pretty gory, which I appreciated. It wasn’t over the top, which was nice.

One thing I especially liked about this film was the different meanings one can take from the title. Obviously, they’re descending into the cave, but there’s also the descent into madness that you see in the main character. The ending was kind of freaky in that sense.

I have a couple of criticisms about this film. First of all, the sub-plot between two of the characters was completely predictable. I called it five minutes in, and sure enough, I was right. There’s one other thing…the monsters in the cave had ‘evolved’ to be completely blind and suited for living in a cave. For one, evolution like that takes much more time than the creatures were reportedly down there. Second, they supposedly couldn’t locate the women if they just stood/lay/etc. still. Creatures living in a cave environment and catching wild animals like that…I can’t believe they couldn’t feel the heat from their torches or any of a bunch of other things to find them. But whatever.

Overall, I enjoyed “The Descent”. The setting and most of the story were original and there wasn’t an over-the-top amount of gore. I give it a B+.