Holy hoot, it has been a long while since I have been on here.
I can easily say that my life has been fully turned on its head since the last time that I posted on here. I was working an office job, the same job that I am working now, but that was it. My whole life was either being at work, or not being at work. And it’s not like I had a problem with work. No, I’m lucky to have a job that’s constantly changing what it asks of me, so I’m rarely bored. The only problem was that it was all I had going for me.
Until this summer.
From June to September, I went back to the one thing that kept me sane throughout all of college, high school, and even middle school: theatre. I was a part of five different shows this past summer, which is much heavier dose of theatre than I had ever participated in during school (I was usually only in one show at a time). They were all so unique and so different from one another, so it’s pretty difficult to put any point of this summer above another. But what made this summer truly special was that of the five shows I had done, four of them were written and/or directed by one or more of my friends. In fact, I myself co-written and co-directed one of these shows, rather than being a part of the cast.
Now, the community theatre company that I have been working with is mostly targeted at high school students, college students at the oldest. This made me one of the “old people” there, so it was clear that my time there was coming to an end. But most of these shows weren’t a part of that theatre company. They were written, directed, and produced by organizations created by friends that were my age. We were making the shows ourselves. It was like we had spend so many years in the passenger seat, and then just decided one day, “you know what? Maybe I’ll give driving a shot.” And boy, did it work!
I guess where I’m trying to go with this is that this summer fully shifted my mindset to where I’m realizing that if I see something that I want to exist not existing, I can make it myself! And this inspiration has caused me to throw myself headfirst into about four different projects (some of which you may be hearing about soon!). And I’m loving every second of it. A year ago, I knew I wanted to write comedy, but I didn’t know how to go about making these projects a reality. But now I’ve learned that if you really want to make something, you just gotta do it.
I don’t know. I’m looking through this post, and it’s not making a lot of sense. But I really wanted to take a moment to write this all down.
So, this is the first time that I’ve ever done something like this. I might do it more regularly, I might never do it again. But this is a video of me singing one of my favorite songs: Vienna by Billy Joel. I think it’s come up in a favorites post once, which doesn’t surprise me at all. I hope you enjoy it.
Okey doke, well it’s the end of another month, which means that it’s time for another favorites post! I only have four things this month rather than the usual five, but I feel like I wrote more about each one to make up for that. So go ahead and keep reading to kind out what I liked this month! But you don’t have to, especially since I’m probably distracting you from the depressing memes both above and below my post on your dashboard.
1. Daylio
Daylio is an app that helps you keep track of your mood. Now, if I were to read that last sentence, I’d probably think, “ugh, another daily app that I have to remember to use every day.” I have failed time and time again to keep consistent journals, so I understand hypothetical Lahiru’s sentiment. It might be difficult to hold yourself responsible to do something that’s techincally unnecessary on a daily basis just because of your own self-interest. But Daylio is so simple and quick to use while remaining actually effective that it doesn’t bring any extra burden into your life to use it. All you have to do each day is rate the way you’re feeling on a scale from “awful” to “rad” and then check off some of the things you were doing when you felt that way (see the screenshots above). The process takes seconds. All of these options and word choices can be edited to fit your own life, so you can truly make it your own. The best part is is that you can set a reminder on the app so that your phone reminds you to use the app each day, entirely removing responsibility to remember the app from you. I really like it because it’s interesting to see the trends between my activities and my mood. You can get it for free on the App Store.
2. Waitress
This is a musical that has been on Broadway and is currently scheduled for a tour this year. It’s about this waitress (surprise!) and baker named Jenna who works in this little diner in the south called “Joe’s Diner.” The show consists of Jenna dealing with everyday life while at work and an abusive husband with whom she gets pregnant at home. It’s an emotional journey of self-learning, self-hatred and, eventually, self-love that’s quite moving. But it isn’t the show itself that I’d like to write about for this post, it’s the music. All the songs in the show are written by Sara Bareilles, and I absolutely love them. They manage to have the typical theatrical feel of musical numbers that make it feel like the songs belong on a stage, while still maintaining the deep and touching feeling that we (or, at least, I) have come to associate with Sara Bareilles’ music. In fact, one of her songs that you might have heard on the radio a few years back, “She Used to Be Mine,” is one of the climactic songs in the show. There are two main recordings of the show’s music, the Original Broadway Recording and What’s Inside, which is an album of songs from the show, but sung by Bareilles. I would definitely recommend trying both out.
3. Dan and Phil
If you are a fan of the Internet, then there is a high chance that you are also a fan of Dan Howell and Phil Lester. These two British YouTubers and roommates have very quickly taken over my life with all of the funny and feel-good content that they have made over the years. Dan is basically the personified version of the depressing end of the me_irl subreddiit, while Phil is a happy-go-lucky golden retriever of a human whose humor shines mainly through his childlike curiosity. While they do have their own individual channels (Dan’s can be found here, and Phil’s here), the best videos that either of them have produced are the ones that they have made together. The chemistry between these two friends are unlike anything I have ever seen, and I think that there’s something that people enjoy about seeing two people who care about each other get along so well. They’re also far more hilarious together, as chaos very easily arises from the fact that their personalities are basically the happy-sad theatre masks that every high school drama club tries to include in its logo. In fact, the Dan and Phil, or Phan, friendship is capable of such good content that they even have a gaming channel together: DanandPhilGames. Here, they play every sort of video game, from Halo to The Sims to online games like The Impossible Quiz. I am not a video game person by any means, but this channel is literally one of my most favorite things on the Internet, simply because these two do such a good job of making me laugh. They are very much worth your time.
4. Because of Winn-Dixie
Most people will recognize this as the title of a movie, but I’m actually writing about the book that the film is based on. I read it when I was a child, and again more recently, which is how it made it into this month’s favorites post. The book is about India Opal Buloni, a girl who just moved into the small town of Naomi, Florida with her father, a preacher. Here, she meets Winn-Dixie, a dog that changes India’s life. Thanks to Winn-Dixie, India finds friends in people she never would have talked to on her own, allowing this new town to feel like home after all. I absolutely love all the characters in this book, as they each have their own sentiments and baggage that allows them to form this group of people that didn’t know they needed each other. And even though it’s a children’s book, Kate DiCamillo, the author, manages to explore love and friendship and suffering in a way that I find really mature. Overall, it’s a feel-good book that I think you’ll be glad you took the time to read.
That’s all that i have for my favorites this month! I know they were kind of all over the place, but then again, when aren’t they, right? I really hope that you enjoyed at least one of these things, because I think they’re all wonderful. And if I managed to help someone discover something that they now find wonderful, it’ll totally make this post worth the time it took to write it. See you guys next week with another post!
I took the last week off of writing here because I graduated last Friday, and I wanted to take time to celebrate and enjoy making it through my last year of school.
Which made this summer very different from most.
Typically, summer vacation was a time to relax. You could reconnect with your friends, do whatever you wanted, and enjoyed spending time with your family. But that wasn’t the case this time. That’s becacuse this time around, I wasn’t leaving school for the beginning of summer vacation. I was leaving school for the beginning of the rest of my life.
The time that I usually spent enjoying my time at home I now had to spend trying to figure out how to get out. By which I mean get a job, find my own place, and leave the nest to become my own, independent, self-sufficient adult human being. Now, while I have take the first few steps into this process (applying and interviewing for jobs, etc.), it is hard not to feel the pressure every time someone’s parents ask you what you’re doing after college. Because I’m still in the process of finding it out myself.
I feel confident in my qualifications and the way my education has prepared me for my potential job, and everyone who I talk to says that it’ll bee fine and that it’ll work out. But every day that it isn’t fine and it doesn’t work out comes with a little gift-wrapped package of self-doubt. And I know I’m not the only one in this situation: plenty of people who I have graduated with feel the same way.
So here is my message to you guys: we got this. We’ve spent the last four years (or however long it took you) trying and trying and trying and it got us a college degree, which is a pretty big deal. Not only did we gain the technical knowledge that our classes taught us, but we learned a lot about ourselves and how the world around us works. Most importantly, we learned that giving up is the last thing we should do. Persevering got us this far, so there’s no reason for us to stop now.
This all reminds of a comic that I recently saw posted by one of my favorite tumblrs, Incidental Comics. I’ve pasted it below:
I spent the whole day telling myself to study for finals. Instead, I somehow managed to find an episode of Spongebob that I had never seen before.
I went out with the friends I live with to take group pictures with our graduation robes on. We were taking them in place of actual post-graduation pictures because not all of us graduate on the same day this week. It was a bizarre experience, pretending to have the excitement of having graduated, when those feelings wouldn’t come for another week, after we had taken our final exams. People were even saying “congratulations” to us, when we hadn’t even done anything worth congratulating yet. And the whole time I couldn’t help wondering what the point of all this was. The only reason we were taking these pictures was so that they could end up on Facebook in a week, when we actually graduate. It just sounds ridiculous, planning and faking for a post that no one is going to look at, that people are just going to click the “like” button on as the blindly scroll through their feed. I try to ask my friends about this, and they just say that it’s for the memories. But this doesn’t make sense either: because who ever looks back on these pictures? We’re always to busy creating new memories. Creating, not living. Forming them for the sake of showing them to others, not to look at them ourselves.
Today’s the last day of April, and anyone who has been following this blog or has read the title of this post knows that this means that I am going to write about my favorite things for the month of April. I do this because it gives me a break from having to think too hard about what I have to write and because it’s a fun thing to do! Let’s go ahead and get started.
1. Bojack Horseman
(Before I go on to say anything, can we appreciate
This first on my list is the Netflix show Bojack Horseman. The show is about the title character, a washed-up 90s tv star from a “Full House” type show who is trying to maintain his fame. The show takes place in Hollywoo (yes, I spelled that correctly), home to the stars in a world where humans and animals live in tandem, as if the animals were humans themselves. The show has a really dry sense of humor, and isn’t afraid to approach the dark side of life, which really helps develop Bojack as a full character. You learn that even though he has this life of fame and fortune and can basically get whatever he wants, whenever he wants, he isn’t necessarily always happy, and actually spends most of his life otherwise. I think that’s one of the things that I like about this show. The fact that this cartoon with talking, while intended as a comedy, can get depressing and sad an real at times, somehow makes it more realistic than a live-action comedy with human actors.
So if you’re into that, I’d definitely recommend checking it out!
2. Candles
Okay, look, I know that I’m late to the game. Candles have already become a thing, but until this school year, I was never really faced with a need for them! Allow me to explain: both of my roommates are Indian, and thus, they cook a lot of Indian food in the apartment. Now, the smell of Indian food is quite good, but only when it is attached to food, not when it is attached to a PERSON. Call me crazy, but I don’t feel the need to smell like whatever eccentric mixture of spices my roommates decided to use on their food today. So, I invested in candles! Leaving one lit (lol ayyyyyyyy......I’m sorry) for about an hour not only fills my room with whatever delightful scent I’ve chosen. I’ve used a variety of scents over the past year, but I’ve found that my favorite has been the vanilla-scented one. Not only does it smell like what I assume fairy farts smells like, but it’s so distinct that I can easily tell when I’ve left the candle on for long enough to complete eradicate the other smells in the room. Hint for college kids: I know that for a higher price you can get a huge variety of smells, but the dollar section of any Walgreens/CVS-type store has a solid collection as well, so I’d start there first.
3. Vienna by Billy Joel
Now, this may have been in a favorites post before, because this has been my favorite song of all time for quite a while now. I don’t particularly know what the song is about, but the lyrics are clearly very personal to Billy Joel, the legendary rock icon who sings the song. Somehow, his closeness to the song accompanied with its overall vibe makes it very relatable and meaningful, despite the mysterious lyrics. It’s soulful, sad, and hopeful, all at the same time, which is probably why its so effective at making me feel better whenever I listen to it. The original song sung by Joel can be listened to here, while an Ariana Grande cover (I can see your skepticism, but it’s good) can be found here. Additionally, a short cover of the song by Lennon Stella of Lennon and Maisy, who I wrote about in my VERY FIRST FAVORITES POST can be found here.
4. Moana
Okay, something else that I am late to the game for. Look, I loved this movie. And I haven’t had a chance to talk about it before so I’m going to talk about it now. This movie was all about embracing who you are and finding the strength in being that person. It’s about having something to believe in. It’s about loving where you come from. All the messages in this movie were so strong and important, and the fact that the main character was a strong, brown girl made it even more important to me. Children’s movies need diversity now more than ever, which is one of the things that makes this movie so significant. Not to mention that the animation and music in this movie were beautiful, too.
5. You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes
This is Pete Holmes. He is currently my favorite standup comedian. And he has a podcast in which he has deep and intense conversations with other comedians. What’s so great about this podcast is that there really aren’t any limits. Pete isn’t really afraid to take the conversation into uncomfortable places (aka “make it weird”). In doing so, we get a glimpse into the perspectives of these various comedians. More importantly, we get a glimpse into perspectives that may not match our own. The main three themes that Holmes tries to hit with his guest are comedy, love, and religion, three very multifaceted topics. Despite the depth reached in these conversations, there is always room saved for laughter. So if you love comedy, or thoughtful conversations, or jsut thinking in general, give this show a listen. You can find it here.
Well, that’s all I have for this month. It’s weird, I actually found this more time-consuming and difficult to write than some of my other posts. It’s probably because in previous posts, I usually have a train of thought to hitch a ride on while I write the post. Here, I was kind of coming up with things on the spot, since I didn’t have my favorites planned out (note for next time). But I hoped you enjoyed reading this, and that you found out about something that you might consider checking out.
Follow my blog with Bloglovin This is an annoying post, I know, but I’m trying to find ways for more people to see my writing, and from what I’ve heard, Bloglovin can help me do that! So bear with me and ignore this post. However, I did just make a post about color runs, and how they are basically cultural appropriation of the Indian holiday, Holi (spoiler alert, by “basically” I mean that it definitely, one hundred percent is cultural appropriation). I thought it was interesting, and I enjoyed writing the post, so check that our here!
Tomorrow I’m going to be taking part in my school’s Holi celebration. I’m always pumped for this time of the year because the event is all about having fun and celebrating love and good and playfulness and getting covered in color. It’s kind of a great way to spring (pun intended) into the sunnier part of the year.
Unfortunately, this is also the part of the year during which people everywhere engage in one of the most casual cultural appropriations out there, other than Halloween.
Color runs.
For those of you who don’t know, color runs are events, typically as a fundraiser, that consists of its participants running some distance as their splattered with different colored paints of powders. It allows people to have fun, get covered in color, and take cute pictures for their Facebook profile, all while ignoring the culture from which this tradition originally came from.
Holi is a celebration of the potential of a successful spring harvest, the colors of the spring, and has religious significance in Hinduism as well. The color-throwing session is traditionally preceded with a ceremonial bonfire the night before, and are followed by family time with food.
Look, I get it, Holi looks awesome. You’re jealous of how fun and quirky the pictures that your Indian friends put online are. You want to have fun, too. But you don’t care to take part in any of the other traditions that come with Holi. Or to learn more about the cultural signicance and meaning that this holiday has with certain people. The solution? Just take the fun part of someone else’s culture, give it a different (and uncreative) name, and call it your own.
What’s wrong with that?
Everything. Literally everything.
I think the only thing worse than blatant ignorance towards other people’s cultures is making money off of it, which is what typically happens at these color runs. Even if its for a good cause, it’s still disrespectful.
What I don’t like is the fact that there isn’t any credit given to where the idea for color-throwing came from. In fact, it’s so bad that most of these people who take part in color runs don’t even know that Holi exists. The least you could do after stealing someone else’s tradition for your own entertainment is learn about where it came from.
So if I’m friends with you on Facebook, just know that I won’t be liking your pictures from your color runs, nor will I be accepting any invites you send me for your color runs. If I believe in the cause you’re raising money for, I’ll donate. But I don’t care to take part in yet another instance of America’s tradition of...well, stealing other people's traditions.
If you want to throw color, go to a Holi celebration. I’m sure they’d love to have you. There’s nothing wrong with celebrating and taking part in the cultures of others, as long as it’s respectful.
Oh, and if you’re a student group or a charity looking for a fun way to raise money, and are considering a color run, don’t. Find something else. Do a bake sale or something.
“Prom Doesn’t Matter” and other Bad Advice You’ve Given
If you’re in college, you’ve probably had someone in high school complain to you about the unfortunate drama that accompanies the life of a high-schooler. As an attempt to help them, you probably made some proud proclamation along the lines of “Oh, none of that will matter anyway.” But this is, by far, the dumbest way you could have approached this situation. And I feel like you, as the older person, should have already known that. But if you don’t, allow me to explain.
Now, as I write this, I am going to approach this topic using Prom, as this is the most relevant thing plaguing the minds of high-schoolers right now, but I feel like this can apply to any of the angst-driven situations that come up during high school.
First of all, “It doesn’t matter” is not advice. Not even a little bit. No conversation in which one person is consoling another has ever gone like this:
Person 1: Hey, I’m sad/upset/worried about _______.
Person 2: Don’t be. It totally doesn’t matter.
Person 1: Wow! You’re right! I completely forgot that emotions work exactly like clothes: once I realize I don’t need them, I can just get rid of them! Thanks :)
“It doesn’t matter” is just about the least helpful thing you could say to someone about something that they are concerned about. In fact, if this is your idea of advice, may I recommend that you rather turn to that high-schooler, look them in the eye, and say “I’m sorry, I’m too stupid and lack the necessary empathy to help you.”
Secondly, you’re right. But not completely. Look, most, if not all, high school drama will cease to matter a couple of years into the future, if not sooner. I know that, you know that, and, deep down, the high-schooler you’re talking to knows that, too. But guess what? THEY AREN’T A COUPLE YEARS INTO THE FUTURE YET. If life could be represented by the Yellow Brick Road, they’re the Dorothy that’s about to walk through the field of poppies, while we’re the Dorothy that’s already been to Emerald City and are now off trying to figure out how to destroy the Wicked Witch of the West. Sure, we’re facing much scarier things than a bunch of flowers that can make you sleepy, but the field of poppies is the most immediate obstacle that they’re facing right now. The fact that something won’t matter in the future doesn’t stop it from mattering now. So just try to help them through the poppies before freaking them out about the Witch.
Finally, take a moment to think about what you’re doing by telling them that “Prom (or whatever it is) doesn’t matter.” We already established what you aren’t doing: helping them. But what you are doing is marginalizing their problems and bragging about the fact that you don’t have to face them anymore. You’re basically saying, “Wow, you still have to deal with that? Pshhh, I don’t.” And that’s...just a really mean thing to do. Yes, each of us made it through high school, but did it feel easy at the time? No, it was filled with angst, heartbreak, and emotional turmoil. And if it took us getting through it to realize that none of it ended up mattering, how can we possibly expect any different from them?
Nothing in this post is really relevant to me anymore, since I’m almost on my way out of college. But I’ve seen some of the younger college kids do this to high-schoolers thinking that their two seconds out of high school has filled them with some sort of profound wisdom. And while it probably has given you a new perspective, it’s more likely to help you than it is to help those you flaunt it to.
Look at me, following through on something for once! Like I mentioned in the last post, these things might get a little journal-y, so if you don’t want to read more, you don’t have to! This post is about one of the hobbies that I’ve started and cultured over the past year: standup comedy.
Joining the comedy club was easily one of the best decisions of my senior year, other than living on campus, of course. Being a member of this club felt like what I assume it was like for Harry Potter to find out he was going to Hogwarts. He knew that he had some sort of weird power from the beginning, in the same way that I was aware of the fact that my sense of humor was one of my stronger personality traits. Comedy club was basically the Hogwarts of comedy, where you learned how to control and wield your newly discovered power. Now that I have a better idea of what it is like to write and perform your own jokes, it is one of my favorite things to do.
But it wasn’t like that for most of the year.
When I was in high school and middle school, I did a lot of theatre, and thus became quite familiar with performing. It became one of my most favorite things to do. Whenever I’d get off stage after a performance, I’d be filled with this rush of euphoria and excitement. I was doing something that was making me so happy that putting energy into it somehow made me even more energized than I was before. No matter how bad the show was, regardless of whether or not I absolutely botched up every scene, every performance I gave was accompanied with this rush, and this feeling soon became something that I associated with performing itself.
Unfortunately, this was where performing in musicals differed from performing standup. When our comedy club’s monthly showcase would roll around, rather than being excited about getting on stage, I would dread it. I would fear the idea of standing there, in front of countless strangers, microphone in hand. I would often see if there was a test or gregarious homework assignment I could use as an excuse to get out of performing at the showcase. Being onstage was the one thing that made me happy for years of adolescence, and now it was the one thing that I did not want to do at all.
Not only that, the handful of times that I did end up forcing myself to perform were never followed by that post-show rush that I had grown accustomed to getting when doing theatre. I would walk offstage usually feeling nothing, and the few times I did feel something, it was just embarrassment. Something about standup just felt wrong: I could play all sorts of characters and even sing onstage without any problem, but when I’d go up to perform some jokes, my legs would shake so violently it was visible to the audience.
Now, there are a lot of reasons that this could be the case. Firstly, when you get onstage during a standup show, you are already doing something insane. You are wordlessly proclaiming to the audience, “Hey, I think I’m funny. Not only that, I think I’m so funny that I’ve prepared things to say that will make you laugh, and I don’t even know you.” This is such a cocky way to think, but it is something that you are admitting to the audience the moment they see you on stage. The next reason that comes to mind is the fact that you’re all alone onstage when you’re performing standup. And that loneliness is far from the camaraderie that typically flows through the cast of a musical. You are all by yourself, and have no one to play off of or even look at if any moment of your performance starts to go south. Finally, and most importantly, the material that you perform when you do standup is much more personal because you are the one who wrote it. Sometimes, when the performance of a musical isn’t good, people like to blame the musical itself, saying that it was poorly written or put together when it was being crafted as a work in the first place. It wasn’t the cast’s fault, it was the playwright’s. That excuse doesn’t work here, because the performer and the creator are the same person. Furthermore, I work hard on putting together the jokes that I actually decide to share onstage. So when the audience reacts in such a way that tells me that they don’t like my jokes, it feels as if they are trying to say that they don’t like me.
Now, I wish I could tell you that there was some sort of journey of self-discovery and that I learned the secret to loving standup. Maybe there was, and I did, and I’m just not aware of it yet. But, unexplainably, when I got offstage after my performance at our April showcase, which happened yesterday, I got my post-show rush. It was there! It felt like theatre! It felt like something I’d actually want to do again!
I would love to know what it is that changed. Maybe it was practice. I’ve been doing my best performances whenever my friends come to the show, so maybe it was some sort of satisfaction of proving to them that the time I’ve dedicated to comedy has been worth it. Maybe it’s their support carrying me through the show. But whatever it is, I’m glad it has happened.
I don’t entirely know what the purpose of this post is. I think it’s because I wanted to admit to myself that maybe I was trying to force a friendship between me and comedy all year, and that it’s taken until now for that friendship to actually form naturally. But I love standup now, and I hope it stays that way, because it’s starting to feel as right as being in Aladdin Jr felt in eighth grade.
I started this blog, originally titled “Laugh at Lahiru,” with the idea that its posts would be dedicated to laughing at the dumb things about life. However, that is changing.
Because not everything is funny.
This sounds depressing, yes, but I promise I’m not writing this angstily (not a word, I know). I’m writing it because it’s true. There are thoughts and opinions that I have that can’t - and shouldn’t be - expressed as a joke. Furthermore, there are things that I would like to talk about on this blog that aren’t just funny, but things that really matter to me.
Which is why I’m changing the name of this blog to my name. Because that’s the only thing that’s going to be on here. Me. Writing about whatever. Because writing is something that I like to do and want to force myself to spend more time doing. And if I take off the pressure of that writing having to be funny, maybe it will be a little easier to do.
I know that the only people who read these posts are a couple of my friends who very kindly followed this blog. This post is more of a note to myself that I’m putting out on the internet so that I feel some sort of obligation to A. Write on here more regularly and B. Remind myself that if there is something that I want to talk about and share my thoughts on, I don’t have to do it in a way that is funny. So it’s more like a I’m writing a poorly put-together letter to myself (and as I am writing this, I’m strongly considering formatting future posts as letters to myself because that’s TOTALLY UNIQUE AND HAS NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE *cough* DEAR EVAN HANSEN *cough*).
So for those of you who actually took the time to read this and are considering reading posts of mine in the future, expect them to be more journal-y and about things that have happened to me and the world that week. I might do monthly favorites posts again, but who really knows.
PS. I wrote part of a blog post about how being funny isn’t always the easy thing to do, but it got very deep and emotional, so I’m probably going to save it for never.
Long time, no write, I know. But hey! At least I’m getting a post in during the first month of the new year! (Albeit on the last day, but....shut up)
A couple of days ago, I put on a coat and headed out on a walk. I hadn’t really a destination in mind, just a desire to spend some quality time with my brain. Just to think without having something in particular to think about, allowing my mind to wander as much as I did on this walk.
I found myself walking all the way into downtown Minneapolis, which is quite a trek for a walk in the winter. The concrete of the sidewalk thudded against the soles of my shoes with each step. The trees pointed their dead, creepy, decaying branches at me. The wind whisked away every breath I exhaled, taking a degree of my body temperature with it.
I then passed by a lady who screamed, “WHAT!? A DONKEY!?” into her phone.
I thought I’d talk about some movies that I am looking forward to. They both have some relation to one of my favorite movie series - Harry Potter - hence the title.
The first of these movies is Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. This movie is written by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling and is based in the same wizarding world Harry lives in, but takes place years before he is born. The story, as far as I can tell (it’s been a while since I’ve read about it), follows Newt Scamander, author of a textbook that Harry uses at Hogwarts that goes by the same title as the movie. The film is going to cover a lot of the creatures from the wizarding world, as this was Scamander’s area of study. I find this idea intriguing, because only a few magical creatures were actually touched on during the Harry Potter series, so this will be a part of the wizarding world that we have yet to really learn about. The other exciting part of this movie is that it takes place in America. Rowling told us about the fact that magic existed in America by writing about the Ilvermorny Wizarding school in America, but that was all we knew about American wizardry. Yet again, Rowling has found a part of the world she created to teach us about. This movie came out last Friday, and I have yet to see it, but will hopefully do so over Thanksgiving break. I can’t wait!
The other movie that I’m really looking forward to has not come out yet, and won’t be out for a while. This film is none other than Disney’s live-action version of Beauty and the Beast. I’ve seen the trailer and the scenery looks breath-taking, as does the animation of the cursed people-turned-inanimate-objects that play a significant part in the movie. My biggest hope is that they do a good job with the music in that movie, as the music from this show is some of my favorite from all of the Disney musicals. How does this relate to Harry Potter, you ask? The main character of the movie, Belle, is played by none other than Hermione Granger herself: Emma Watson. This, in my opinion, is one of the most perfect parts for her, as it suits what I assume is her personality (I say this because we never really know what famous people are like, right? Even the nicest-sounding celeb could be a total jerk). Plus, we might get a chance to hear Emma Watson sing, which has the potential to be absolutely amazing or...very detrimental to the world’s opinion of Emma Watson. I hope for the former. The movie comes out March 17th of next year.
There you go! Those are the movies that I am most looking forward to. I know this wasn’t the most insightful post, but....
I don’t want to talk about this election. It was disappointing and sad and a reality check as to the type of people in this country. But know this: if you feel scared or anxious about being who you are in a country that is capable of making a decision like this one, despite all of that, there are people that love you. I promise. No election can take that away. Find these people, and hold them close.
As I had proudly proclaimed on Instagram, last Friday I went home and voted via absentee vote:
Luckily for me, I live in Minnesota, a state that allows no-excuse-needed early voting. This is great because that means more people in Minnesota, and other states with this privilege, are voting. It’s become so easy to vote that it boggles me that there are people out there who still won’t do it.
To those people out there, we’ve heard your reasons for not voting, and honestly, they’re not good enough:
“I won’t have time on Election Day” - You don’t need to vote Election Day. Every state has some way of voting early. You’ll need an excuse to get an absentee ballot for some of them, but if you can’t make it to the polling places on November 8th, then you already have an excuse. Here is a site that talks about all of the different ways you can early vote in all 50 states.
“I don’t want to make an uneducated vote” - Then don’t. Information about all of the candidates and their views on the issues that matter is very, very Google-able. You just need to take a few moments to get it. In fact, this is a page from the Washington Post website that lets you look at the major candidates and read what they said on various issues. If you don’t like it, there’s plenty of other websites out there. Google is your friend.
“Your vote doesn’t matter” - Yeah, it’s not supposed to. Your single, individual vote is not going to have some huge significant effect on the election. But it’s not supposed to, that’s not what the point of democracy is. The whole point of democracy is that if large numbers of people vote a certain way, their collective voice is heard. And for each person like you who thinks their single voice isn’t worth it, that voice gets smaller. This whole voting thing really only works correctly if everyone pitches in, so just do it. Additionally, you don’t have any right to be mad about the results of this election if you don’t vote. Why? Because you didn’t go out and do something about it.
So please, go out and vote if you’re eligible. This is an important election, with two wildly different candidates, each with very different ideas on how the country should be run. So if you care at all about how the world will see America, do the right thing and find a way to vote.
A Review of Bad Moms (and totally not a review of The Accountant)
This past weekend, I saw the movie Bad Moms with a couple of friends of mine. Now, while I am no movie expert, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie so much to the point of wanting to write about it (I also saw The Accountant recently, but honestly it’s not worth writing about).
What I liked about Bad Moms was that it had a simple storyline that was easy to follow: mothers having trouble dealing with the stresses of being one. The fact that there was only one storyline to follow allowed you to sit back and laugh the whole time, making it a movie that could be enjoyed by anyone (unlike The Accountant, which had about five different stories, none of which were well developed. It was almost as if the people who made the movie wanted to make sure you had no idea what was going on at any point. Basically, unless you were crazy or asleep, you spent the entire time in total confusion). The light-hearted tone of the movie kept you smiling the whole way through (I couldn’t keep count of the number of people who died in The Accountant, but it basically became so commonplace that it was more rare for someone to breathe, which, as a human, you know happens constantly).
The movie starred Mila Kunis, who's sassy acting allowed her to hilariously portray snappy mother Amy Mitchell (Anna Kendrick played main character’s love interest, and had the only enjoyable scenes in the movie because, well…it’s Anna Kendrick). The movie also starred Katherine Hahn and Kristen Bell, creating a trio of three very differing personalities whos clashing kept you laughing and asking for more (The Accountant starred some other people, too, and if they had made the movie as watchable as Anna Kendrick did, I might have bothered to look them up).
My favorite part of Bad Moms (something that does not exist with me and The Accountant) was the scene in which the mothers needed to go to the supermarket. The scene was shot in such a way that it felt more like a wild party scene, with quick cut-shots, and raging party music accompanying the total destruction of each aisle the moms ran through (blah blah The Accountant just killed a bunch of people while confusing the audience).
Overall, I’d recommend Bad Moms to anyone who wants to have a good time (and The Accountant to everyone else).
P.S. Okay, I admit there are definitely people who would enjoy The Accountant. I’m just definitely not one of them. I didn’t hate the movie nearly as much as it seemed from this post, but everything about spending the whole time confused and only liking the scenes with Anna Kendrick? Totally true.
I do. I enjoy it too much to not be doing it. I need to write more. And more importantly, I need to write more on this blog. As anyone who has read these posts since the beginning of the year may know, I made a promise to myself to post on this blog once a week. But with senior year happening, and as the next chapter of my life, adulthood, gloomily peers its ugly, many-headed self into my life, I’m realizing how unrealistic of a promise this may be. That being said, I’m going to try to do this, I really am. Even if it means making shit posts like this one to keep it going. Because what matters is that I’m writing. I just have to know that I can’t really expect much from myself when it comes to this. But I thought I’d start off by making a post that is similar to what I did last time: the second edition of Where I’ve Been.
Senior Year!: That’s right, I’m a senior in college. It’s really happening. This is something that is both glorifying and terrifying. The great part about being a senior is that when it comes to school, very little will faze you, and if anything does come close to fazing you, it’s probably nothing worse than what you’ve dealt with for the past three years, so you just kind of deal with it.
The scary part of this is something that I had hinted about earlier: the unavoidable, oncoming storm that is adulthood. I need to find a job. A real job. Not teaching swimming lessons, but a job that is relevant to what I’ve spent the past four years learning and that can allow me to sustain my own life independently. And that unknown void known as the future can be frightening, but that’s why you work to change it into to something that you are sure of. Thus, I have joined the job hunt.
My Apartment: Now I don’t know if this is something that I have mentioned before, but I had spent my sophomore and junior years commuting to school from home, which, while convenient, did stunt me from being able to grow more independent. Luckily, my parents have been kind enough to allow me to live on-campus this year. I currently live with a couple of friends I have made over the past couple years of college, and things are going well. I’m feeding myself, I’m close to all of my friends, and I get to be open to more on-campus opportunities that would have previously been unavailable to me due to the inconvenience of having to drive back and forth between school and home. Life is better here.
Comedy Club: This has overall been one of the best experiences of my senior year so far. I decided to join the school’s comedy club, something that I have been wanting to do for the past couple years. The point of the club is to provide opportunities for students to pursue comedy as a hobby, mainly in the form of standup. Now this is something that I’ve wanted to do for a long time, so the fact that I’m actually doing it astounds me. I will say, however, that performing standup is one of the most terrifying experiences I’ve been through. I spent years playing characters onstage to the point where I don’t get too nervous about it anymore. But when it’s you, playing you, saying your material, it adds a whole new personal level to performing, which is what makes it so scary. But I enjoy it. I really feel like it’s a student group where I fit in, which I have struggled to find all through college, so I’m glad I finally found it.
So that’s it! These are the main things that have been taking over my life over the past few months, and I hope you enjoyed hearing about them. And if not...
