Movie Thoughts
Movie Thoughts
I saw
The Waitress this weekend. I liked it a lot. Very cute, and endearing, if not a little bit depressing. But overall I really enjoyed watching it.
So, while I'm not very good at writing reviews, I would highly recommend this movie to a friend.
So, I finally got around to seeing
The Da Vinci Code. A little more bloody than I would have wanted...but overall a pretty good movie. I suppose it was a good thing
I read it last summer...I think I would have been a bit lost otherwise. Of course it wasn't as good as the book...but some of the lines were pretty good/funny...I don't remember them being in the book.
Anyway...when you don't have classes, you have a lot of time to watch movies. So what have I watched recently?
I went on a Disney kick for a few days, so I watched some of the Disney movies I never got around to seeing.
I watched
A Bug's Life. Cute, basic storyline of the underdog saving the day...I was a fan of the fact that he invented new tools and gadgets...very MIT-esque.
And to add to my kids movies streak...
Brother Bear. I have to say, it got me a little confused about when/where the story took place (some time around the ice age or something? All I know is there were mamoths and glaciers...maybe they were chilling in Alaska...) I loved the moose brothers (played by the guys who were Bob and Doug McKenzie...if you have no idea what I'm talking about...hmmm). So Canadian! (hmm, maybe this was somewhere in Canada?)
I also watched
Monsoon Wedding. Good music. There were quite a few story lines going on at once...but overall good movie.
Wow, I would make the worst movie critic in the world: "The movie was pretty good, as movies go..."
Oh well, I'm pretty sure nobody reads this anyway...but I like posting anyway...I have the free time to do it now!
oh, and I'll even talk about a restaurant, too!
My friends and I went to
Fajitas & 'Ritas before the movie tonight. Mmm...fajitas....
Definitely good food...fast service when it came to getting the food...but I think I confused the waiter and he thought I wasn't done eating, so he didn't bring us our check for quite a while.
Well, that's it from me. I should be sleeping (or maybe packing and cleaning).
-S
So, my sister, Katie, was in town visiting with me for the beautiful 4 day weekend (it was her spring break). She's most likely coming to MIT next year, so if any '10s are out there reading this, you'll have to meet her!
I had so much fun hanging out with her. And she helped me accomplish so much! My room is clean, my dishes are cleaning, there's food in my fridge, and a paper that I've been procrastinating on for a week is now done. Yay!
And what did we do this weekend, besides get me on the way to sanity?
Friday: Watched movies:
Shaun of the Dead: Basically it's a spoof on horror films, so you just can't help but laugh. And man, I definitely laughed a lot. Very funny.
Easter Parade: A classic. Fred Astaire and Judy Garland. My family watches it every year, and since my sister was in town, it only seemed right. Really cute, a bit cheesey, but I'll always be a fan.
Saturday: Cleaned my room, did work.
Yeah, I know, lame.
But I also performed with
Resonance at the
Dance-a-thon (the event was for raising money for the
Children's Miracle Network)
But that night we went to
Toscanini's for ice cream. If you've never been, you really should go. They've got lots of random flavors (along the lines of
J.P. Licks). I got "chocolate sluggo" which was a combination of all their chocolate flavors, and my sister and friends got flavors such as Mango, Blueberry, M&M, and Mocha.
After that, we watched
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, which I loved (for the second time!) and will most likely confuse you.
Sunday: Easter!
Church at the
MIT Chapel.
Walked all the way to
Boston Common, and took pictures of
the ducks (and if you've never read the book about them, you should, it's a children's book, but a classic!)
Saw
Take the Lead at the Boston Common Lowes (okay, so technically it's an AMC now, but whatever). It was pretty cute, rather predictable and clichéd, but the dancing was awesome, and Antonio Banderas was in it...so...yeah, it was fun to watch. :)
Walked from the movie theater all the way past
Faneuil Hall and
Haymarket, and ate at a nice Italian restaurant in the
North End. (I don't remember which one)
Back home to chill.
Monday: Marathon Day!
It was Patriot's Day, Marathon Day, so lots of people were at the
Boston Marathon. I was not one of them. I was lazy and stayed home. I think I just enjoyed the weather, did some work, and hung out with my sister.
The best part of that day was when my sister and I headed out to
Harvard Square. We went to
Burdick's. They're chocolatiers. Let me tell you, I think that was probably the best chocolate I've ever tasted. I can't even start to describe how amazing the chocolate was. So rich. So gooooood.
yeah, needless to say, that was a good idea.
Well, I've put off doing work for long enough tonight.
Leave a comment if you read this, because I'm pretty sure no one reads this anymore.
Anyway, later.
-S
I have to say, I'm a fan of these long weekends. I got to go home and hang out with my family! I was going to go see my sister's marching band perform (she's a drum major!) but their performance was cancelled due to the weather. The upside is I did get to watch a recording of the band on video, though that's definitely not as cool as seeing the real thing. At any rate, I did see two movies this weekend! (well, watched one on DVD, saw one in theatres). So, thus returns my "Movie Thoughts!"
The first movie I watched this weekend was The Muppets take Manhattan. It's a pretty cute movie, and I think I remember seeing some of the scenes before.
I went to go see Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit at the movies. It was fantastic! Now, I've been a fan of the short films with these characters in the past, so when I originally saw previews of it, I was super excited. So, basically, this movie is hilarious. Take claymation characters, add some British accents and humor, an obsession with cheese and crazy inventions, adorable rabbits, telling facial expressions, and a little adult humor, and you've got one of the best movies I've seen in a while. It's just so incredibly funny! It's hard to explain the awesomeness of this movie without spilling the plot line, but I assure you, it will have you laughing (unless you don't like what I listed earlier).
Well, I'm typing this up on the train, so I can post it when I get back to campus, but we're about to reach South Station, so I'm going to have to end this here. Hope you all enjoyed the 4-day weekend!
-Stephanie
Well, my friend Jamie came up to visit me this weekend. Lots of fun. We went into Philadelphia and saw some of the historical places there. The buildings we went into were all part of Independence National Historical Park. We saw the Liberty Bell, and also went into Congress Hall, Old City Hall, and Philosophical Hall. I'd been there quite a few years ago, but it was nice going back to see some historical buildings and symbols. And I couldn't help but feel a bit special thinking about the Course 3-ness involved in the Liberty Bell! I also liked learning more about the history of Congress Hall (where senate and congress met while Philadelphia was the nation's capital), and the Old City Hall (It acted as both the city's courthouse and the supreme court). Philosophical Hall was more of a tiny museum of art, science, and history.
We got back to my town, and went out to a local Mexican restaurant for some really tasty food, then decided to check out the movies. We decided on Wedding Crashers. There weren't too many choices, and we figured, why not? I guess the movie was pretty funny, but part of the movie just made Jamie and me want to visit Washington, D.C. (the city the movie takes place in). It probably had something to do with our historical site seeing earlier that day.
But yeah, don't want to bore you folks too much. . .I don't want to turn this into a diary where I talk about everything in great detail. So, I'm done.
-Stephanie
Hey everyone. hope your summers are going well! My job has been going pretty well, though the walk from the subway station to my job can get really horrible since temperatures have been in the 90s quite a bit. Luckily I can sometimes get a ride back to the station after work, so i don't bake into a crispy little thing.
And of course, I saw another movie! What else is new?! My family and I rented Hitch the other night. It's really a very cute movie! Sort of a chick flick, but lots of fun to watch. I especially liked the part where Kevin James tries to prove that he can dance. So funny, cause I think I may have tried some of those dance moves! Plus, it's so "akward white boy", so it reminded me of a lot of my MIT friends ;)
Hmm, I just realized it would be really cool if this blogging stuff could turn typed smiley faces into icon smiley faces like on instant messengers. I'm sure there's a complicated way to do it. . .but I'm lazy sometimes!
So really, I don't have much to say. Do check out the other 09s blogs. Most recently, I added Reggie and Julia. I think the next most recent (can you say that? next most recent?) was Peach's poetry blog. I hope all the incoming freshmen are excited to be coming to MIT. I know I'm excited to meet all of you!
-Stephanie
Well, I finally got a hold of the pictures from the day I went to the manhole . :)
In case you aren't sure, I'm the girl ;) The tall, young looking guy is my fellow intern, Chris, and the mustachioed guy in both pics is Vinnie, my boss. The other man who is in only one of the pictures is John, a chemical engineer that I also work with.
In other news, I've seen 2 movies this weekend. (I must seem like a movie maniac!) I went with my younger sister and her friends (oh man, I'm so cool) to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Friday night. I don't know if it's better or worse than the original movie, just different. I enjoyed it a lot. Really entertaining. I especially liked the one scene where they show a reference to Edward Scissorhands. I thought that was pretty clever, seeing as it's another movie with Tim Burton directing and Johnny Depp as the star. But I digress. There are plenty of good parts to the movie, and one improvement is that the songs in this version use the lyrics originally written by Roald Dahl (the poems that were in the book). So, overall, I liked it!
The other movie I watched this weekend was Manna from Heaven. It was so fun and heartwarming. And the thing I think my family and I liked the best about the movie was that it was set in Buffalo, NY, the city that my sisters and I grew up in. It was so much fun to see all the different places that we could recognize. Plus, the movie was an independent film made by 5 sisters, and because it was independent, the ending credits thanked all the different people and organizations that helped them. We recognized some of those names too! So, the movie is cute, and fun to watch, but it's especially fun for people from Buffalo.
Well, that's all for now!
-Stephanie
What do I mean, that I'm famous? Well, one of my posts has been "featured" on Blog Carnival-Sports. Check it out! (oh, and by the way, in response to the comment I posted to them, they said that it was in fact a compliment).
I've also got a book update. I just read The Big Sister's Guide to the World of Work by Marcelle DiFalco & Jocelyn Greenky Herz. Okay, so maybe it's only a good read for women (the subtitle is "The Inside Rules Every Working Girl Must Know"), but I really liked the way the facts were presented. And most of the advice is good for both genders, but it is specifially focused on some issues that women face in the workplace as opposed to men. It's not some angry woman bra-burning type stuff, just usefull stuff for surviving the work force. I'll probably re-read it when I get into the "real" world.
And yes, last night I watched another movie. But I'm not sure if this one counted, because it was on TV. I saw The Breakfast Club. The reason I say I dont know if this counts as actually seeing the movie is because almost every curse word was replaced with some minced oath or other replacement word. . .it just loses it's effect. That, and I think they cut some of the movie to make it fit in the allotted time. Oh well, I had always meant to see it, and I finally got around to seeing it!
There was probably something else I was planning on saying, but I just can't remember. Oh well. Later!
-Stephanie
So, I was wandering around the MIT "blogosphere" and came across one of the official Admissions blogs, from a class of 09's. Laura had a link to a website that I wish they had when I came to school. (or maybe they did have it, but I never saw it. . .) It has a nice list of what to bring when you come to MIT in the fall. I think it's got lots of good information. One thing I might add to it is a small tool kit. Basically, it's because you don't know when you might need it. I have one, and actually I think other people have used it more often than I have (so that's another reason to have it. . .it gives you the opportunity to help out that cute boy/girl down the hall ;)). But if you've read over that list and you have something that you aren't sure about, ask me! Or ask another upperclassman, for that matter! I wont be offended!
I saw movies over this weekend (again). Went to go see De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté (the Beat that my Heart Skipped) with my parents (oh yeah, so cool, going out with your parents on a Friday night. . .). It's another French film (not to be confused with the one I saw a few weeks ago). This was a much more serious movie. Basically, the main character starts living a double life. one life is criminal and slimy, and one is playing the piano. It's really a pretty good movie. A little graphic at times, but the piano music is beautiful. I have to say, though, it's the kind of movie where you really have to think. . .
The other movie I saw this weekend was Bride & Prejudice. I think it just came out on video here. I absolutely loved it! Basically, it's a movie-musical version of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, and it's set in India in modern times. The songs were awesome, the costumes were gorgeous, and the dances were spectacular! The dancing reminded me of the Culture Show that SAAS puts on. I went this past year, and it was absolutely amazing! But yeah, the movie is so awesome. My mom says we might buy the DVD. That would be so awesome. I'm looking forward to being able to listen to and watch all the fabulous music numbers! There are even extended versions of all the songs in the "special features" part. Can you tell I liked this movie? :)
Sunday my mom, dad, younger sister, and I went to the beach. Or as people in New Jersey say, we went "down da shore". :) Oh man. So beautiful. it was so relaxing to just sit on the beach with my family. And I got this great feeling of peacefulness when I walked into the water. It was a bit cold, but I stayed in for quite a bit. and just watching the waves. . .man, that was just so great.
So, I guess that's enough for now. Thanks for all your comments! As always, please let me know if you have any questions, and also, if you stumble upon this page some way or another, let me know who you are/how you found my site. later!
-Stephanie
It was definitely nice to have a three-day weekend. I got to spend time with my family, eat good food, and relax. Plus it was the 4th of July! So, that made things even better. Sunday afternoon, my family and I went over to a friend of the family's house for a cookout and such. My little sister and the girl in the family her age went swimming, but I opted out. But I did end up playing volleyball with them. I also played a bit of Frisbee. I have to say, I'm pretty proud of myself. . .I was actually starting to get good! The last time I played with a Frisbee, I ended up tripping over a tree stump at the Fens. And I wasn't throwing or catching it very well. This time, I did really well! Our friends live pretty close to Veteran's Park, where fireworks are set off every year, so we watched the fireworks from their backyard.
Last night, we went to a Trenton Thunder game. The Trenton Thunder is a AA minor league baseball team. They are affiliated with the New York Yankees ::shudder::. Ironically, the team that they were playing against was the Portland Sea Dogs, who are the AA affiliates for the Boston Red Sox! I have to say, I felt a bit torn. I wanted to root for my "home team", the Trenton Thunder, but I also wanted to root for the Sea Dogs because I knew they might eventually be Red Sox players.
I've been watching quite a few movies recently. I am almost ashamed to admit it, but I watched Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous last Thursday night. It's definitely just a silly movie, but I guess it's just fun to watch, and I actually enjoyed it. Sometimes you just need something light and fluffy, you know? Friday night I watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I haven't watched that movie in so long, and I knew that it was somewhere in our movie cabinet, so I just had to watch it. Made me smile. :) (oh, and check out the lego version!). Saturday night, we rented some more movies. We watched The Terminal. Nice, heartwarming movie. . .though we got a little frustrated because the disc kept on skipping. . .We also rented Blazing Saddles (yay Mel Brooks!) but we haven't gotten a chance to watch it yet. Maybe we'll watch it tonight!
I also finished reading another book. I finally got around to reading The Da Vinci Code. It's relatively well written, and definitely a bit trippy. . .but it wasn't bad. The beginning half, you might start getting confused as to what's reality and what's fiction, because the stuff they talk about is all "real" stuff. As my dad puts it, "The nouns are true, but the verbs aren't." The later you go in the book, the more it turns into a novel. The fiction becomes more apparent. Hopefully I'm not giving anything away by this. It's really a good book, and I'm interested to see how they make it into a movie. [trailer]
Oh, I almost forgot. Katelyn says I should write about penguins. Well, here are some things I know about penguins. In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Arthur Dent says to Ford Prefect, "You're turning into a penguin. Stop it!". the other thing I know about penguins is that there's a documentary about penguins that recently came out (i heard about it randomly on the news. It's called March of the Penguins..
Well, that's I'll I've got for you. I saw on the MIT Website that the blog survey I posted about is a big deal!
.
-Stephanie
Well, since the last time I wrote about the books that I've read, I've finished two more. I read Maurice by E.M. Forster, and Artemis Fowl, the Opal Deception by Eoin Colfer. Maurice was actually written in 1913-1914, but was not published until after Forster's death due to the subject matter. The novel is basically like any normal love story, except that it was about homosexuality. This topic was too racy for the time period it was written in. But I thought it was really good, and I'm planning on reading more of E.M. Forster's works (I've already read one other book of his, A Room with a View). And I loved the Artemis Fowl book! I'm a fan of the series. It's very mythical, with fairies, trolls, magic, etc. But they're very well written. . .and I managed to finish the book in only 3 days! (it probably helps that I have such a long commute each day!).
I also went to go see The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants last night with my younger sister and one of her friends. Very good, though it's definitely a tear jerker! I don't remember the last time I cried that hard! But it's still a really good movie. Just don't forget your tissues! I hadn't brought any, and let me just say, that was one regret I had!
Well, that's it. Work has been going well. A bunch of people came to learn about what we do at the place I work as part of a conference sponsored partially by EPRI, Electric Power Research Institute. I one of the guys who presented was course 3 from MIT! I met him, and we talked for a bit. I gotta say, there's something that brings some sort of weird connection between MIT alumni/students. I think it's the shared pain, and the ability to talk about stuff that you both know about. He also got a glimpse of my Brass Rat, which he pointed out to me. That's another thing I like. The brass rat is like a universal sign that you have suffered through/enjoyed MIT. Or something like that. Anyway, I dont know what else to talk about, so I guess I'll end there. Keep the questions coming!
-Stephanie
So much to talk about! First, answers to your questions you posted (thanks Laila and Saad). The first answer: I live at Next House. I really like living there! The second question: how do u spend weekends at MIT, and how often can I go to New Jersey per month. I'll answer the first part first. There's lots to do on campus and around Boston. Usually, though, I'm kinda lazy on the weekends if I can help it. Basically Saturdays I'll sleep in, and then clean my room a little, look at my homework a bit (yeah, I know, BORING!) Sundays are usually my busy days. I usually have Resonance rehearsal, attend Church at the MIT Chapel. The chapel is really great to be in, if you haven't visited it yet. A lot of different religions have services in there, and even if you're not religious or anything, it's really nice to just see (architecturally and acoustically). There are actually concerts held there as part of the MIT Thursday Noon Chapel Concerts Series.
Okay, so I've realized that I start to ramble when I start thinking about stuff to talk about. Anyways, besides tooling and attending meetings, I do try to have fun! Many fraternities have parties on the weekends that you can go to. I often visit Theta Xi, one of the fraternities that many of my friends are members of. It's kinda funny, me telling you all this, because there's often a difference between what I want to do, what I should do, and what I end up doing on any given weekend! Let me think. I mean, a lot of weekends (or weeknights if I'm really lucky) I will hang out with friends, maybe order in some takeout, or go out to eat. And now that the Student Center has Anna's Taqueria, it's easier to get cheap, good food on the weekends (dorm dining halls are open for dinners Sunday through Thursday, and Lobdell is only open for lunch on weekdays). I mean, there's also a lot of other options, but I can go into those at a later date if you want.
So there I've gone again, rambled on about a topic that I meant to only talk a little bit about. I think that's the usual with me. lets see, I mean, there's lots to do. sometimes I'll watch movies with my friends, or just spend time alone in my room cleaning, arranging songs for Resonance, or singing along to music. Of course, I do work sometimes too, but I try to have a little fun while I'm at school! Oh, one more option (actually I have a ton of options, but I can go into those at a later date, too) is to go to LSC. LSC stands for Lecture Series Committee, but most of the time they show movies. The tickets are $3.00 a person (last I looked) and you get to watch the movie in a movie theatre-type atmosphere (big screen, good sound system, etc.). Usually, these movies are shown in 26-100. And they're actually good movies, recently shown movies, so you know that you can see something that you didn't want to pay $10 to see at a local movie theatre. A few other options for stuff to do are listed in my "fun links" section to the left.
Oh, and about going home to NJ. I do that occasionally. I come home for holidays, and if there's an important event happening at home. I usually take Amtrak to NY Penn Station, then NJ Transit from there to home (because it's cheaper to do the rest of that, and it gets me closer to home than taking Amtrak all the way home. Some people will also take a bus to NYC. There are the Chinatown Buses, which take you between Chinatown in Boston and Chinatown in NYC, as well as Greyhound. The most famous Chinatown Bus (that I know of) is the Fung Wah bus.
I still haven't updated about all the fun stuff from this weekend! Let's go in order:
Friday night I went out to see a movie with my mom. It was a really cute movie, Après Vous. Even though it was made in 2003, for some reason it was showing at this little theatre about 20 minutes away from my house. Definitely a good movie (as long as you don't mind reading subtitles!). After that, my mom treated me to ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery.
Saturday I got a haircut. I think I took like 6 inches off, and it looks a lot better than it has looked in quite some time. When I find my digital camera (or someone else with one) I'll post pictures (because I know Katelyn wants to see them!) I also bought a laptop Saturday evening. It's a Compaq Presario Notebook. I spent the rest of the night setting it up (and by setting it up, I mean downloading all the software I needed!) It's giving me a bit of trouble, freezing up every once in a while, but I'm going to look at it later and try to figure it all out.
Sunday was Father's Day! We went to Lancaster, PA and the surrounding area (Amish Country). We shopped a bit, then had dinner at Miller's Smorgasbord. Oh man, that is some good food! Afterward, we went back to NJ and gave my Dad his presents. My little sister and I got him tickets for "Whad'Ya Know?", a quiz show that is broadcasted on NPR. They're taping it at the Trenton War Memorial, and we figured since he likes the show, we would take him. So yay. My older sister and her husband got my dad the Spamalot CD (and a promise to take him to the show!). My mom got him something MIT-tastic! My dad went to MIT way back when, and we've been looking for plates for a while. There are special MIT plates (like, good china) that have different images on them of different places around MIT. So, my mom got him a bunch of those. So cool! There was a picture of Senior House, and the Gray House (president's house).
Whew. I talk way too much about stuff here! okay, well, you all can let me know if you have any more questions.
-Stephanie
I really should be packing. Like, I'm supposed to be out of the dorm in less than 12 hours now. and barely anything has been packed yet. I guess I'm a little overwhelmed, I have so many clothes to pack away, and papers to sort through. oh well, I really have no choice, it's gotta be done.
Saw Star Wars III today. Pretty cool. Saw so many MIT people there, kinda funny. Special effects were amazing, yoda was adorable, and battle droids were hilarious (they said the funniest random comments, like "uh oh!" and such, like, very human things, instead of droid-ish things).
I'm debating whether or not to toss all my notes from the term. I'd like to keep them, especially since there's a lot of interesting stuff in there, but I know I'll never use them. And if I were to make a bible for the class, it's not stuff that people couldn't just get online, so I don't know. Oh, and for you 09s, a bible is basically a collection of notes/psets/exams/answers from a class that upperclassmen keep (usually for underclassmen to use). I'll probably end up tossing them, and just maybe store the information somewhere on my computer. takes up a lot less physical space.
okay, enough procrastinating, I swear!
-Stephanie