A Confession

I haven't read a full book, outside of English class, for over five months.

It's because there are too many distractions.
-school
-internet
-school
-internet

Excuses aside, I'm just really annoyed at myself. I love reading, but I just haven't been making the time for it at allllll. And my life consists of other things than Tumblr...for instance, sometimes I go outside and film things and make them into pretty videos. But is editing on Final Cut any healthier than checking Tumblr?

On a normal five day week, I have too much schoolwork to read. By the time Saturday comes around, I'm too ''busy'' galavanting throughout the internet to read a book. And Sunday is usually a repeat of Saturday. Another part of the problem may be the lack of good books I have. There are maybe....six books on my bookshelf that I've owned for half a year, but I haven't finished reading ANY of them. I'll start a few chapters, then stop since I take too long of a break. Maybe all I need are some new, fresh books to motivate me to read again.

By confessing this publicly, I might be able to stop my bad habit of not reading, and start a project of some sorts that forces me to read. I dunnooooo?

My Oscar Picks

A few disclaimers: The nominations I have seen will be italicized. The nomination I want to win will be in bold.  Categories in which I haven't seen any of the nominees work will not be included. These choices are not necessarily what I think will win the Academy Award, simply what I would have personally voted for. :]

Best Picture
"Argo"
"Django Unchained"
"Les Miserables"
"Life of Pi"
"Amour"
"Lincoln"
"Silver Linings Playbook" (This movie isn't a typical Oscar contender, but I enjoyed it more than any other movie I've seen this year!)
"Zero Dark Thirty"
"Beasts of the Southern Wild"

Actor in a Leading Role
Bradley Cooper - "Silver Linings Playbook"(I haven't seen Lincoln yet, but Bradley was amazing amazing amazing.)
Daniel Day-Lewis - "Lincoln"
Hugh Jackman - "Les Miserables"
Joaquin Phoenix - "The Master"
Denzel Washington - "Flight"

Actress in a Leading Role
Jessica Chastain - "Zero Dark Thirty"
Jennifer Lawrence - "Silver Linings Playbook"(Obviously I love Jennifer's work, but her role as Tiffany was so many different things at once and it was amazing amazing amazing.)
Emmanuelle Riva - "Amour"
Quvenzhané Wallis - "Beasts of Southern Wild"
Naomi Watts - "The Impossible"

Actor in a Supporting Role
Alan Arkin - "Argo"
Robert De Niro - "Silver Linings Playbook"(I'm just really rooting for SLP this year. De Niro had some scenes that were just soooo well executed.)
Philip Seymour Hoffman - "The Master"
Tommy Lee Jones - "Lincoln"
Christoph Waltz - "Django Unchained"

Actress in a Supporting Role
Amy Adams - "The Master"
Sally Field - "Lincoln"
Anne Hathaway - "Les Miserables" (In a shocking turn of events....)
Helen Hunt - "The Sessions"
Jackie Weaver - "Silver Linings Playbook"

Directing
"Amour" - Michael Haneke
"Beasts of the Southern Wild" - Benh Zeitlin
"Life of Pi" - Ang Lee
"Lincoln" - Steven Spielberg
"Silver Linings Playbook" - David O. Russell (The reason I'm choosing Russell over Lee--whose movie I also loved--is because of a b-roll clip from SLP..click here to watch it.)

And The Oscars 2013 Nominations Are...

Writing - Adapted Screenplay
"Argo" - Chris Terrio
"Beasts of the Southern Wild" - Lucy Alibar & Benh Zeitlin
"Life of Pi" - David Magee (How do you get a book like 'Life of Pi' and turn it into a movie? It's not easy, but was done extremely well.)
"Lincoln" - Tony Kushner
"Silver Linings Playbook" - David O. Russell

Music - Original Song
"Before My Time" from "Chasing Ice," music and lyrics by J. Ralph
"Everybody Needs a Best Friend" from "Ted," music by Walter Murphy, lyrics by Seth MacFarlane
"Pi's Lullaby" from "Life of Pi," music by Mychael Danna, lyrics by Bombay Jayashri
"Skyfall" from "Skyfall," music and lyrics by Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth (When Skyfall--the song--first came out, I didn't care for it. But seeing it in the film was so dramatic and great, and made me such a huge fan of the song. Bravo!)
"Suddenly" from "Les Miserables," music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer and Alain Boublil

Cinematography
"Anna Karenina"
"Django Unchained"
"Life of Pi"(Some of the shots in this film were stunning, even if they were CGI.)
"Lincoln"
"Skyfall"

Costume Design
"Anna Karenina"
"Les Miserables" (I guess I have to go with Les Miserables?)

"Lincoln"
"Mirror Mirror"
"Snow White and the Huntsman"

Film Editing
"Argo" (The editing of this movie is what made it so suspenseful and interesting.)
"Life of Pi"credited
"Lincoln"
"Silver Linings Playbook"
"Zero Dark Thirty"

Makeup And Hairstyling
"Hitchcock"
"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"
"Les Miserables" (Everyone looked deathly sick at some point. Especially: Hugh Jackman + Anne Hathaway...although Hathaway's appearance can be to her 'indulgence' in anorexia for the role.)

Music - Original Score
"Anna Karenina"
"Argo"(I wish there could be a tie between the nominees. I choose Argo since, for me, the music created a big part of the suspenseful plot.)
"Life of Pi"
"Lincoln"
"Skyfall" 

Production Design
"Anna Karenina"
"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"(A lot of effort was put in to make Middle Earth come to life.)
"Les Miserables"
"Life of Pi"
"Lincoln"

Sound Editing
"Argo" (In the film there were so many little noises from the people of Iran and the US that were very necessarily to the plot. Life of Pi was great too though.)
"Django Unchained"
"Life of Pi"
"Skyfall"
"Zero Dark Thirty"

Sound Mixing
"Argo" (Not sure what the difference between the previous category and this category is, so I'll go with my same choice from before.)
"Les Miserables"
"Life of Pi"
"Lincoln"
"Skyfall"

Visual Effects
"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"
"Life of Pi"(The visual effects in this film were outstanding.)
"Marvel's The Avengers"
"Prometheus"
"Snow White and the Huntsman"

Last night of break.

School starts up again tomorrow. I have just under two weeks of new material before semester UNO exams start.

So this post is kind of like a countdown to January 14th.

I'm interested to see what the verbal attitude of my teachers will be like regarding the looming exams--since September the phrase "this is going to reappear on the semester final" has been used after practically every lesson for practically every subject.

As this year (2012-2013) is my first year of high school, I've never "made" grades that colleges will eventually see. The format of how colleges do see my grades is actually pretty great. Only semester grades for classes (quarter 1 + quarter 2 + final exam) are shown on college resumes, so even if you get a B in a particular class during the first quarter, you have another quarter plusss a final exam to improve that B.

School tomorrow, incase you forgot.
Good night.

2012 Favorites

Film: Life of Pi, Silver Linings Playbook

Television Show: Doctor Who, Keeping Up With The Kardashians

Book: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Person: Jennifer Lawrence

YouTuber: Casey Neistat

Mainstream Song: Little Talks, Of Monsters and Men

Website (other than YouTube): Tumblr

Gadget: iPhone

Class in School: History

Store: Urban Outfitters

Café: Susie Cakes (San Francisco)

Candy: Altoids

Drink: Water

Color: Green

words//travel

I follow a great blog on Tumblr, and a while ago she posted a word/travel tag in which you write a few sentences about how you associate travel/experiences while traveling with a particular word. So I did it. 

14: asylum

Russia. I'm not an expect on Russian geography, but the area where there are a lot of secret spies would remind me of an asylum. Cold and snowy. I feel like there would be some type of horrific, abusive asylum in the middle of Russia. No offense to people in Russia, or anything.

27: cafe

Paris. I wish I kept a record of all the cafe's (or restaurants in general) that we ate at while in Paris. The most visited cafe was Paul's, which had delicious pastries and small tables. J'adore Parisian cafe's. 

21: yacht

NV/AZ area. Over time I've watched many travel specials on yachts. One of the locations I remember seeing yachts sail were in the canyon-y areas of the Southwest. 

16: oil

Gulf of Mexico. The oil spill. Oil is just disgusting, unless it's the olive kind. Or maybe I associate oil Italy, since olives are grown there.  Wait, what?

9: laugh

Roller coasters. They're fun and exciting. 

10: padlock

Los Angeles. Padlocks aren't particularly pretty, and neither is most of LA. Also, Ke$ha lives in the LA.

17: clay

Northern woods. Native American's fascinate me. Before the Westerner's came to destroy their way of life, it seems as if the Native's had such a nice, laid back, caveman-esque life. I wrote a few chapters for a fictional novel about Native Americans a few years back, and I'm still just as fascinated with their way of life. I imagine them living in the woods with tall trees, getting water from the stream, making clay to share with family...that sounds sort of like Katniss Everdeen's life. Not that her life is in any way glamarous and fun. But..eh...understand..?

8: radar

American highways. Radar is such a technological word, and when I'm on the highway I always feel like I'm on a 'radar'. Everything's monitored and watched and planned. 

3: beach

See this post. Or this video.

20: frost

Vancouver, BC. A few months ago, I was introduced to twoaftertwenty (a great photo blog by a college graduate), who made a few posts about her trip in Vancouver and British Columbia in general. The snow and frost fascinates me, as do the animals that inhabit those areas. I really want to go to Vancouver in the winter, as I do for Canada and some Northern European country. Incase you didn't know, I love snow, and since I usually travel in the summer I don't travel to places with snow! Hmu, North North America. 

An Article.

Every month, a compilation of teen writing comes to me via mail. This month, there was an article that I could relate to.

Click here to read it. It's about introverts. 

the 20's of november

On Wednesday (November 21), after arriving to the apartment after a long car ride, we were soon greeted with a beautiful sunset. It didn't look how an industrialized, post-steel city should look, but it was nature-ful nonetheless.

And then, on Thanksgiving day, we woke up to SUNSUNSUNSUN.

I've never been the biggest fan of Thanksgiving food, even though the holiday itself is one of my favorites. The turkey seems to be dry, I don't like patatoes or gravy, and I never get to eat any pie.

My favorite aspect of Thanksgiving is the history of it. When I was in grade school, I wrote an extensive story on Native Americans living in the 16th century, becuase I wanted their (in my mind) glamarous lifestyle of living in the woods, wading in rivers, and venturing into the wild. Thanksgiving--eating the harvest in the forest--was part of this awing lifestyle, I guess.

Two days later, on Saturday, there was snow. I took a walk through the snow, drove through the snow, and stared at the snow. J'aime quand il neige.

Pittsburgh; Thanksgiving, 2012