Thanks, Mother Nature

A quick snapshot of my backyard this morning, read on to clarify

Once again I'm posting at 1AM, this seems to be becoming a habit of mine, posting late in the night. Well, last night was my friend's surprise 16th birthday party which actually turned out to be quite fun. My friend Nat thought she was going to go help out at a senior living community's annual Holiday Party at the local golf clubhouse but in reality, it was 40 of her friends plus her family ambushing her.

I left practice an hour early so I could send two people home and pick up some dry cleaning (it was semi-formal) before the party, but because of traffic, I didn't get to take a shower like I wanted to. I ended up just wiping myself down with a hot moist towel which worked in a pinch. I didn't have time for dinner either so when I got there, me and the other 6 crew kids were all starving half to death. Finally, when she arrived, everything got into full swing and food was brought out (cue angel chorus). There was dancing and the like but most of the people there were juniors and the only seniors there were me and some other people from the crew team, but we had fun. As always, the DJ though could have been better, he sucked at transitioning songs and he didn't listen to 3/4 of the requests which was annoying. Nat had a great time though, she got a tiara and a really nice *pink* cake. It was a pretty good cake but the frosting was sickeningly sweet and rich. The final song turned out to be "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz which was kinda odd mood-wise but we all got a nice good-bye hug circle going.

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In a rather funny bit of friend gossip, my friend Kevin has developed some sort of man crush on Taylor Lautner of Twilight/New Moon fame. On Friday he asked me "Is it gay for me to like New Moon and the Twilight series?" to which I responded "No, I've read all the books and seen the movies." This then developed into a three person coversation between him, me and another girl in our journalism class and into how hot Taylor is and how he had made so many people "change teams" in the whole Vampire-Werewolf debate. Later during crew practice I asked him what the whole thing was about in journalism and he just said he had been really obsessed with Taylor Lautner since seeing New Moon, to which I responded "Well, he is really hot and has the body of a god" and he said back "He is really hot, and I'm secure enough with myself to say that." Anyways, I find this whole episode kinda funny, I never really expected this from him, and combined with the fact that he likes Lady Gaga, Kesha, Taylor Lautner and to an extent Twilight (though he claims to never have read the books, something I question a little) and that he's not afraid to get touchy with people makes him quite an interesting person...

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Today, here in the DC area, we got our first legit snowfall. I measured about 3 inches outside our front door but some nearby areas got over 5 inches! It might not sound like much to some people, especially those who live further north, but that's a lot of snow for this area and surprisingly early in the season at that. Maybe this will finally be a good snow year. I ended up just working on an English project, French and college essays all day, boo, no fun. Tomorrow is going to be sunny though which means most of the snow and ice will likely melt away, but maybe, ever so slight the chance that some ice will remain that we might just get a delayed start on Monday. *fingers crossed*

I hope everyone has enjoyed their weekend so far.

Take care, and all the best,

JP

We Want Alfredo Sauce!

Jeez, I haven't posted since Wednesday! Well, the week has come and past and I guess it's time for some updates. First, Jake's back in school, he seems okay and in good spirits and I'm glad he's back, I was really worried for a little while. Also, my uncle is better, he went to the doctor and he got checked out, he was told to take it easy for a while and he may need to go back in a little while. But all in all, everything which preoccupied my mind last week seem to have been remedied in some form.

With the first week of crew winter conditioning finished, Friday saw the first pasta party of the season. Pretty much, a family donates their house to about 40-50 teenagers, parents and coaches we all go and gorge ourselves on pasta and mess around for two or so hours. We attempted to play a few rounds of ice breakers which turned out to be a giant game of Telephone. Many of the novices this year are really loud and obnoxious which is kinda annoying, but they're freshman for the most part so what can you do? Probably the biggest event of the night though was the little battle over the menu changes. Because one of the captains wanted to make the menu healthier, many things, including Alfredo sauce for the pasta, were done away with. Well, some of the veteran members weren't too happy about this so there was a good-spirited battle between the pro and anti Alfredo clans. Of course, there were us apathetic folk stuck in the middle but it was amazing to hear some of the arguments made ("Alfredo sauce is made of happiness, are you going to deny me the only reason I live!?"). Overall, a fun night.

Today I went to go see New Moon with eight of my friends and it was pretty good. Yes, Taylor Lautner was as gorgeous as ever, and compared to the previous movie, Twilight, it wasn't nearly as much of a train wreck. The bigger budget probably helped as did casting some surprising people including Dakota Fanning as Jane. Robert Pattinson looked better in this movie (more well groomed) but I am steadfast in saying that Lautner and his buff-ness stole the show. Something that surprised me though wa sthe fact that it broke world records for the biggest opening day gross ever. Apparently it made over $72M which easily beat the previous record which was in the low 60s. I guess the fan base was larger than I previously had guessed.

This upcoming week is only three days long because of the Thanksgiving holiday so I'm actually looking forward to it. Thanksgiving is probably one of my favorite holidays because I get to see so many members of my family and hang out with my cousins which I rarely get to do.

Also, I want to share a website, in case you haven't seen this yet, go visit mysterygoogle.com. What it does is give you the previous searches results for whatever you put in. Essentially, whatever you search, the next person who searches will get your results. I've gotten some pretty funny results so far like "is it possible to reverse-juice an orange?" and "can fish sneeze?". I suggest you go check it out yourself, hopefully you'll get a nice laugh out of it.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend,

All the best,

JP

Hello Beautiful!

Finally, it's Friday. Tests are done, essays have been turned in, projects reviews and ready to be revised one last time. This past week has been pretty busy, but I made it through first quarter in one piece and well solid in the grades department. On Thursday, my school held "academic achievement" awards which pretty much means if you managed a 3.8 or higher in the previous school year, you get recognition. Last year, we had a grading scale change which made getting a better grade easier, by a lot. This meant while last year the awards recognized the top 12% or so, this year it meant the top 25%, not cool. The award lost a good bit of it's value since the 3.8GPA guideline did not change to meet the new grading scale, people who previously never would have qualified now do, and that annoys me and my friends since some people who are complete slackers are being recognized.

Anyways, now that I've vented, I would like to make a confession. It isn't something I am too terribly proud of nor something I am overtly ashamed of, but nevertheless, it's something I try to not draw too much attention to. I am a Twilight fan. For those of you who don't know what Twilight is, it's a series of novels revolving around a girl Bella, who falls in love with a vampire, Edward, and what goes on as she gains too much insight into the vampire world. And also there's some werewolves, a secret super-vampire led international vampire governing body, sick cars and glittery skin just for laughs (okay, maybe this last bit was kinda a synopsis mess but you get the idea). A couple of my friends begged be a few years ago to buy the first novel by Stephanie Meyer and read it because it was so good. I ended up buying it at an airport book shop and read it while I was on holiday in Puerto Rico, and you know what, it was pretty awesome. The story, while hardly what I would call prize worthy, was engaging, full of fun twists and turns and made me want to keep reading, something that is difficult for me to do. Afterwards, I ended up buying the rest of the books in the series, but they were less than satisfactory to say the least, especially compared to the first book. I really wish that Meyer actually just ended the story in that first book but I guess it needed to be drawn out.

Taylor Lautner

So fast forward to today, or more correctly, the past few months. In case you don't know, the Twilight movie came out last year and this November, its sequel, New Moon, is being released. The first movie was kinda a cinematic mess but this one promises to be better due to a bigger budget but also because it will see the increased role of a certain Mr. Taylor Lautner. He will be playing werewolf Jacob Black in the movie and can I say, may we have a round of applause for washboard abs?

My god is he cute/hot whatever! Now, technically, the reader/viewer is supposed to almost hate Jacob Black in some way for trying to steal Bella from her boyfriend Edward when he leaves for Italy because of special reasons, but comon, what do you think is going to happen once people get an eyeful of him? No offence to Robert Pattinson who plays supposedly hyper dreamy vamp Edward, but there is no competition here. I don't understand why girls even find him attractive, to me, he's too pasty, his hair is an absolute mess at all times, he has pine cones for eyebrows and to me at least, he isn't particularly good looking. So, even if New Moon turns out to be even more of a mess than Twilight movie-wise, I won't mind this winter as long as Taylor gets plenty of screen time (preferably shirtless) and the cars are good. About the cars, apparently Edward who drove a hatchback Volvo C30 in Twilight, has switched to a a Volvo XC60, which is an SUV. This is despite the fact he didn't change cars one bit in all the novels. Bleh, petty details in the end.
Robert Pattinson

This is becoming a long post so I will stop here. I hope everyone enjoys their weekend. Also, I do recommend reading the first book, Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer if you haven't yet. I promise you won't think it's boring or too girly, it's a book for Pete's sake and gender-labels should be avoided in all situations anyway. Head off to your local library or ask your friends to borrow their copy, it's worth it.

All the best,

JP