You know those ghost flicks, where the ghost of some murdered person or other is trying to warn the protagonist about the murderer, who is generally someone dangerously close to the protagonist? Well, my question is this: how does the ghost hope to accomplish anything by being scary as all hell? Not to mention as cryptic as it's possible to be. Wouldn't it all be accomplished much more easily if the ghost appeared nicely put together and expressed itself a little more clearly? Just saying.

In other movie news, I watched New Moon yesterday. I went a little early, at around five or so, to beat the crowds. Good foresight, I must say. Coming out I saw lines miles long. Miles, I tell you.

As for the movie itself... It was entertaining, sure, but so not worth the ten bucks I paid to see it. Some bits really were utterly ridiculous, it must be said. Like this one vision Alice has of a newly transformed Bella prancing through the woods, all sparkly and dressed in some gauzy blue dress. And of course, prancing beside her in an equally sparkly Edward. The whole thing reminded me of one of those cheesy as hell Estee Lauder perfume commercials, and I was certainly not the only person laughing. The entire theater, thirteen-year-old girls and all, burst into cackles.

The acting wasn't terrible. Or I guess what I mean is that the actors weren't terrible. You could tell they were trying their hardest to do the best they could with what they were given. I remember feeling bad for poor Robert Pattinson. The kid seems to have gotten stuck with the worst lines.

Watched Where the Wild Things Are. It was very pretty, at least visually, but I wasn't a great fan of that particular interpretation of the original story. They wrote off Max's "wildness" as a result of his being the child divorce; he was acting out because he was sad and lonely and whatever. But the original story never gave us a reason, and Max was wild simply because he wanted to be. As a child I never needed a good reason to be bad, I just was. I was bad because I felt like it, and I would keep being bad until I got bored. And then I'd be bad again as soon as the impulse hit, because it felt good. Children feel no need to justify their behavior. Adults do, because they see this inherent violence in children--and in each other--and it scares them shitless. They need to come up with a reason for it that they can live with. Excuses are a very adult thing.

"Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine."

Glee this week was a bit of a letdown. It wasn't bad, not by any means, but it was certainly not great. I'm very used to Glee being great. And I'm kind of sick of Quinn and what she's doing to both Puck and Finn. Especially Finn. The poor boy's future is being unnecessarily compromised, what with him NOT BEING THE FATHER and all.

And the whole hot-for-teacher subplot was just kind of blah.

And the song-dance I'm-here-for-you number at the end was cheesier than a quesadilla.

Just disappointing.

Glee this week? Pure awesome. Puck was the best, of course, rising to the occasion, baking his Wonder Cupcakes, trying to be a dad... Certainly not a deadbeat. Not by a long shot. Baby boy just chose his own path to success, man!

And Kurt? What he did for his dad? Wonderful and heartbreaking. Though his dad is such a great guy, too: manly blue-collar guy sticking up for his son, doing what it takes to make sure his son gets a fair go at life. Or at an audition, whatever. It's the principle of thing.

This show makes me so happy.

ETA: What doesn't make me happy is that there are never enough chips in bags of potato chips. Is it so fudging hard to fill the fudging bag?

Dexter, Dexter, Dexter... Even better than Glee! Who ever thought such a thing was possible? And who ever thought serial killers could be so hot? I want to lick Michael C. Hall. Lick him from his cute furrowed brow down to his little piggies.

I'm a GLEEk! Watched all the episodes I could get my grubby paws on and now I'm in love. In love with Glee, in love with Sue, in love with PUCK. Puck, Puck, Puck... I should have been working on a paper, you know, but I simply couldn't stop. Certainly paid for by having to stay up all night typing my long bony fingers off.

I did well on my art evaluation this week, but I still think there's room for improvement. Maybe I'll post it up.

Watched Wanted. Most self-contradicting shit I've ever seen. I mean, he ends by saying that "this is him taking control" or whatever, but isn't the entire point of film that we should leave control to fate, that we should obey fate and not our own reason? I don't believe in fate--in fact, I think the entire concept is crap and I don't know why anyone would want to believe in it--but I do believe that good art should at least be consistent. Consistency is nice. It looked so promising, too. And why am I bitching about Wanted, of all films?

I guess I just feel like I wasted two hours of my life. I hate that feeling.

I'm going to watch more Glee now.

Listening to the New Moon soundtrack and loving it very much. So many of my favorite artists! Thom Yorke, Muse, the Killers, Death Cab...and so may artists I've been meaning to try out, like St. Vincent and Sea Wolf. Definitely ups Steph's cool. At the very least, people who dismiss the saga won't be able to dismiss the soundtrack so easily.

And no Paramore or their ilk, thank the powers that be. The last thing I want to listen to is another whiny Evanescence-y goth-pop songstress who wears to much eye make-up.

Any-who, I think I might be getting my LSAT score back today. So glad I had the foresight to stock up on beer, and I may be ordering Thai food later.

ETA: Lykke Li is absolutely incredible! Why have I never heard of her before?

Why is it so difficult to write a personal statement? I'm having trouble getting started, possibly because I'm not altogether sold on my subject. And I'm out of inspiration (beer) and am to lazy to drive to the nearest Whole Foods to buy more.

In other news, I've taken up reading Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series and Patricia Briggs' Alpha and Omega series. Now, Patricia Briggs is fairly badass, if a bit of bible thumper. But they're just brief mentions of the characters' Christianity or faith, and nothing too nauseating. Otherwise, her take on the werewolf/fae/vampire lore is fascinating, and her characters are impossibly real, whether they're good guys or bad. Likable, too, whatever their flaws. The plots are well thought out and engaging, if not genius or especially innovative, but the real reason to read is the characters. Truly good fantasy, I highly recommend it. I've gotten started on the first of her Mercy Thompson books, and it's turning put to be just as satisfying.

But Hamilton? I've heard people speak wonder of this woman, but having attempted to read the first two of her books, I simply don't see any reason for the hype. To begin with, where Patricia is a faithful but quiet churchgoer, Hamilton is a televangelist. I mean, she goes on and on and ON about Anita's Christianity, and about holy water and crucifixes and the evils of voodoo and the wonders of Jesus and please kill me now. But even this I could deal with if the rest of this big pile of muck was in any way enticing. Anita is a cliche and a horribly plastic incarnation of one at that. The girl who is sarcastic--only her supposedly funny remarks are really kind of laughable, and not in the way the author intended--and tough as nails, who hates pink, not to mention detests all girly things like shopping and dressing up, and talks about it ad nauseum, but is a true-blue Christian who thinks money eeeeevil and who seems to attract every male within a thirty mile radius. And Jean-Claude? Two-dimensional vampire if there ever was one, one who wears billowy pirate shirts and speaks with zee zexy French accent, but is still supposed to a force to be reckoned with, as if the the reader could take him seriously. And oh yeah, he's in love with Anita too. Go figure.

Never again, I tell you. I tried and failed.

...'cause cowboy, the snakes there are my kin.

I've been in some kind of emotional limbo since taking the LSAT on Saturday. Just weird feelings of mind-numbing anxiety and exhaustion, and a fear of actually letting myself really feel these things in their entirety because they may prove overwhelming. I could talk about how afraid I am that I will do horribly, or how angry I am that my entire future is contingent on this one test. I could even talk about how afraid I am that even if I do well, I will go to school and realize that I simply don't have the aptitude for law school or practicing law, or worse---what if I find that I hate it? But I simply can't think about these things right now. In all seriousness, aren't I too old for this kind of existential crisis?

Whatever. I've been hitting my Anne Rice novels as a means of escape, as opposed to doing all the schoolwork I should be catching up on. But I'd forgotten how emotionally grueling even Anne Rice novels can be. People may make fun of them, but they really are heavy stuff. Maybe I should switch to something else.

One day, when and if I'm wonderfully wealthy, I'm going to build a large modern house made of nothing but stone and glass. No real walls, just great massive windows looking out onto my great massive garden. The garden in question won't be just any garden, but a forest of crepe myrtle and azaleas and oaks trees and bougainvillea. Maybe a jacaranda tree or two. There will be terraces and galleries all over the house, on every floor, so my guests and I can lounge around on deck chairs and drink cold white wine as we laugh at all the miserable fools living in disgusting Georgian Revival and Tudor monstrosities with deplorable landscaping.

One day, kids. It will happen.

Meanwhile, I have to sweat bullets over the LSAT, which is only SEVEN DAYS AWAY. I have to keep reminding myself that there is a magnificent garden at the end of the road. I really hope all this stress is worth it.

I never really liked Patrick Swayze much. I also didn't like Dirty Dancing one bit. Is that so weird? I simply don't see what there was to like.

Stormy week coming up, folks, and I'm not talking about the weather. Two essays due at the end of the week, and one short scientific abstract (which may as well be an essay, given how much I'm dreading it). AND I need to find time to do an LSAT diag, considering that the test is in TWO MOTHERFUDGING WEEKS. Blah.

So I found a badass Twilight fic over at Twilighted. I sort of had to dig through a lot of crap, but there were few gems and this is certainly one of the shiniest:

The Devil You Know

It's sort of a Pre-Twilight/Post-BD Alice origins story, and it also has a pretty cool take on the history of vampire politics in Meyer's universe. The way she introduces Jane is almost tragic. It's incredibly well written, which is not something you often find in fanfiction in general, Twilight or otherwise. And there are witches in the story! And don't we all love witches?

However, the author doesn't seem to have a very big audience, which (witch!) I feel is a crying shame. As a result, I have taken it upon myself to find her an audience, because, you know, she deserves it. So go read it and leave a review. It'll do you good, I promise, and can you imagine what a wonderful boost it'll be to the author's confidence?

I'd forgotten how much I used to love the Garden State soundtrack. Listening to Simon & Garfunkel.

In other news, no TB today. How pissed off am I at HBO? Quite pissed, let me tell you. Instead of watching Alexander Skarsgård be sexy, I'll be doing info tech homework. Fuck you, HBO.

I'm looking for Twilight fanfic, but good Twilight fanfic. I haven't encountered such a thing in a good long time. Where can I find some? Does anybody know? Help?

Senior year. Graduating in December. I'm packing in all the boring GE classes I've been putting off into this last semester. Small price to pay, I suppose, and most of the classes are actually rather fun. That said, I can't stand my info tech class. Boring boring boring, and way too much busy work.

I'm also retaking the LSAT, hoping for a better score. I'm applying to law schools this fall, and I'd much prefer not having to apply to second rate law schools I'd never think twice about normally. Hoping for the University of Texas, but we'll see how that goes.

Anywho, does anyone out there watch True Blood? What do you think of it? Personally, I think I've fallen in love with Alan Ball's genius, if not the man himself. I've read the books, and I certainly prefer them to the show, but I love how Ball has sort of taken the story and reshaped it into an allegory of the gay rights movement. It's quite awesome. As is Lafayette.

WTF. Why Kutner? I liked him, dammit. Why couldn't Taub shoot himself in the face?

So I took this quiz, and I was surprised and elated when I saw the result...

I am: Ayn Rand (Alissa Rosenbaum) This charismatic cult leader occasionally used science fiction as one of her recruiting tools for new converts.

Which science fiction writer are you?

...but then I thought, Wait a minute. Cult leader, seriously? She was hardly a cult leader, she was a philosopher who had a great many admirers. If she was a cult leader then so was Plato.

Watching Apocalypse Now for one of my classes, Semiotics of Culture: Apocalypse and Empire. My teacher loved the film so much she formed the class just so she could talk about it. It certainly isn't the only film we're watching, but watching it now for the first time in my life, I can understand why she loves it so much. It certainly is impressive. The images are quite something: imagine an image of dozens of helicopters flying over a jungle, superimposed over an image of Martin Sheen taking a drag of his cigarette. Imagine that same jungle bursting into flames.

1. Busy, no time for journal. I may be somewhat absent over the next few months. I've started my LSAT prep course with Princeton Review, and I already did terribly on the diagnostic. In my defense, I had a terrible hangover, I had about four hours of sleep, and I forgot to take my Stratterra. But anyway, what this all means is that I've become the LSAT homework Nazi, and so every minute that is not dedicated to schoolwork and Amnesty will be dedicated to studying for the LSAT. My future happiness is at stake, yo.

2. Also, very unhappy about stimulus. Very unhappy with Congress for not telling Obama where to stuff it. Very unhappy.

3. Who's psyched for Watchmen? I AM PSYCHED FOR WATCHMEN. I read the graphic novel and GOOD GOD. It's great. Go read.

4. I've decided I don't like Christianity very much anymore. It advocates complacency. That's not good.

5. I am upset about Pushing Daisies being cancelled. It was a great show and it sucks that I won't have anything to look forward to after my Wednesday night class. That said, I have rediscovered Big Love, so my faith in television is not quite dead as yet.