Last Day of Class!!

It's true!  I've now survived an entire year's worth of seminary classes.  It still feels rather unreal...probably because I still have two papers (and the associated reading/research) and two finals (and the associated studying) standing between me and 2.5 weeks of vacation at home before my summer Greek classes start up.  I'm in the process of attempting to make up a study schedule, and it's quite a daunting task...but a good thing too, since I discovered that my 2 papers are due on THURSDAY and not Friday.  That would have been bad.  Looks like my next few days are going to be booked up...except for tomorrow afternoon, when I'm going to the Dallas Galleria (and the American Girl Store!) with my friend Miranda :)

I also just discovered that the Dalai Lama is coming to speak at SMU...probably ought to try and obtain tickets for that.  Mental note.

These things being said, I'm shutting off the computer and going to bed, in hopes of waking up BEFORE 11:30am to be able to get some work done...my snooze alarm habits have gotten progressively worse as I've gotten closer to the end of the semester...besides, I have to go to bed soon, or else I'll be tempted to stay up and watch the royal wedding coverage at 3am, and then I won't sleep at all.

So goodnight world.  See you all tomorrow...

Eye of the Storm

Today was a reprieve in the middle of intensity.  After the paper-writing and class marathon and tornadoes, I needed a break.  So today, I made it a point to do essentially NOTHING.  

While doing nothing, I actually did the following things:

-ate Chick-fil-A with a friend

-took a 2 hour nap

-laid around

-went to the store and bought frozen food and tortillas

-laid around

-took a shower

-watched tv

-talked on the phone

-laid around 

-did my final Blackboard post for church history (what what!)

-ate ramen noodles and watched Friends

As you can see...nothing on that list is exceedingly stressful.  That was entirely intentional.  Tomorrow I'll start working on the research/reading required for my final two papers, and hopefully revise the lesson plan I've been meaning to revise for weeks...my apartment is shutting my water off for some sort of repair from 9-5, so that gives me an excuse to get up early and go to the library.  Last day of class tomorrow!!

Royal Cheese

There are two types of cheese in the world.  There is the cheese that you put on food, and there is the cheese that manifests itself in the way of over-dramatic cinema.  Today, I want to talk about the second type of cheese.  More specifically, I want to talk about Lifetime's William and Kate.


Yes.  I watched it.

This isn't the first cheesy Lifetime movie to weasel its way into my DVR.  I'm ashamed to say that the October recording of The Thirteenth Wife (that destined-to-be-a-classic movie about polygamy, Mormons, and murder) is STILL saved in my recordings list.  I'm more ashamed to say that I've watched it more than once.

I'm not a big fan of the Lifetime movie genre.  Despite the aforementioned lingering of The Thirteenth Wife and getting sucked into a movie about a young single dad's struggle to make it through Harvard after the baby's mom takes off, I really don't watch Lifetime for any real purpose than to catch the occasional episode of Project Runway.  I forget how I came across the commercial for William and Kate, but I thought it was probably the worst idea ever.  For those of you who haven't managed to deduce from the title, the movie centers on the romance between Prince William and Kate Middleton.  "Wait, did they already get married?"  No, no, never fear blog readers.  The royal wedding isn't scheduled until this Friday (that, rightly so, has also landed on my scheduled DVR list).  I find the idea of having a movie about a royal couple's relationship to be extremely tacky when that couple hasn't even made it down the aisle yet.  It's just a grab for media attention from the non-tabloid-reading crowd.

So why in the world did I end up watching it, then?

It was really a twofold process.  First, somewhere in the last few weeks, around when it first aired, my friend Brandi started watching it and commented on how it was entertaining and often unintentionally funny.  I was busy doing homework, but found the next air date and recorded it, figuring I'd watch it eventually when I needed a laugh.

Second, there were tornadoes.  Yeah, as if we haven't had enough of those lately.  Dallas was under a tornado watch all day, but remained relatively sunny except for some light rain in the early evening.  Not much to see here; so you can imagine my surprise when I snuggled up on the couch with my black bean quesadillas and carrot sticks (don't judge my dinner) and discovered that the episode of Glee I had set to record had been usurped by news coverage of some nearby area that had actually had real tornadoes touch down from 7-8:00 tonight.  Annoyed, I fast forwarded through about 20 minutes of weathermen and radar screens before I gave up hope for Glee making it onto the recording.  Lame.

And then I saw it, floating on my DVR list: William and Kate.

You must understand that for the last 24 hours I have done nothing but write a paper, sleep, and sit through class after class after class.  If there was ever a time for a mind-numbing docudrama about a prince and a commoner falling in love, this was it.  And so I pressed play and settled in for 120 minutes of Kate and William's relationship in TV-movie form.

My friends.  The movie did not disappoint.

That's not a cheesy background or anything...

I should clarify that statement.  If you're looking for a well-developed, intelligent and realistic glimpse at William and Kate's relationship, you'll probably be disappointed.  But if you're looking for a movie that is genuinely enjoyable in its cheesiness and entirely one-dimensional in nature, a movie that causes you to laugh out loud at several circumstances because it's so contrived, a movie that will force you to involuntarily exclaim "Oh yes, EVERYBODY loves Prince William!!" several times, then this is the movie for you.  Also, no offense to the Prince of Wales, but I find the guy who plays William to be more attractive than the real version.  So that gives the movie bonus points.  It also has all the romantic cliches of any chick-flick (boy sings karaoke to win girl's heart) while taking a fairly predictable stand against the craziness of paparazzi people.  How's that for a social agenda?  Anyway, by the time the movie is over we've seen Prince William be generally all boyish and charming, we've seen Kate Middleton be generally girl-power-y and fashionable, and we've seen the two of them get engaged against the hazy orange background of a Hollywood African sunrise to dramatic closing music.  What else can you ask from the movie, really?

If you are utterly bored or need to de-stress and happen upon this film, I highly recommend you watch it, especially if there's someone else around for you to mock it with.  Sometimes, you just need a good, cheesy, slightly based in reality movie to kick back and watch.  If you want royal inspiration, go watch The King's Speech; but for royal fluff, you can't beat William and Kate.

Also, check out this article for entertaining descriptions of eight of the movie's most ridiculous scenes...I agree wholeheartedly with everything this writer has to say.

All this being said, I'll still admit it...I'm excited for the royal wedding.  There, I said it.

Mandatory Post

I don't have time to think about this, I have to finish this stupid paper.  Better luck next time, blog readers.

Oy.

Well Jessica's successfully back in St. Louis after the tornadic flight chaos.  We went to an Easter service in the morning before heading to the airport, which was quite beneficial to both of our general demeanors.  Got back to my apartment, slept for two hours, drove 45 minutes out to Prosper, TX to celebrate Easter with a school friend and her family, got back around 6, ate dinner and mocked the more hippie-qualities "Jesus Christ Superstar" while simultaneously holding important and intelligent theological discussions on Skype chat with a friend, freaked out because Dallas went under a tornado watch (and after everything with St. Louis this weekend, I just couldn't take that emotionally...so I relocated to my friend Rachel's fortress-esque apartment on SMU's campus for a couple hours so I wouldn't be alone.  Got back around midnight, took a shower, got all involved in a documentary about historical study of the Exodus, succumbed to complete exhaustion, and still managed to write this post.  I promise they'll get interesting again soon...after my exegesis paper is done, of course.

Happy Easter, all.

-C

Life Updates

Not a lot of time to write; Jessica and I are waking up bright and early to go to the 8am Easter Service at the church I've been going to tomorrow, before her 11:00 flight.  So yes, theoretically the St. Louis airport will be open for service tomorrow, and she'll fly back home.

Also, we went to a hippie festival today.  Yeah.  I'll write about that when I have more time...

Happy day before Easter, everyone (or Happy Easter, if you're reading this on Sunday...which most of you probably will be)

-C

Irony of Tornadic Proportions

So for those who are not yet aware, a tornado hit Lambert International Airport in St. Louis tonight.  The airport is closed "indefinitely."

Yeah.  Not good.

Even worse (from a personal standpoint), my friend who came to visit me this weekend is due to fly into this exact airport tomorrow.

Also, not good.

The irony of the whole situation is that my friend hasn't flown ANYWHERE in 5 years, and now that she does, a (very isolated) tornado smacks down on her airport.  Happily, we called the parking garage who said they haven't had any damage, so her car (which was parked on the roof of a garage across the street) is most likely fine.  Thumbs up for frugality and shuttled parking.

Anyway we'll be off to the Dallas airport bright and early tomorrow, to see what we can find out about her flights, and figure out what to do...

Stay tuned.

In the meantime, check out the story with video, etc. at this link:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/04/22/missouri.severe.weather/index.html?hpt=T1