Life and Lebron

What I'm Listening To: Follow Me Down by 30H!3 ft. Neon Hitch

 It's been a LONG hiatus, so my apologies, but this summer has been jam packed with things to do. As such, I am going to keep this post short, sweet and hopefully to the point and earn your forgiveness back by posting frequently.

The basics are that I am an intern for the ICM Corporation this summer and I love it. I started June 1st and its simply been an amazing experience. That has taken up a large chunk of my time as I work from 10:00am-4:00pm every day. I am a copywriter so typing for six hours takes a little toil on my hands but it definitely pushes me to be creative and find more innovative ways to do my job. Yesterday, we got name plates to set on our desks, so it's official: we're a part of the team. My co-workers are really awesome people and the environment is great. I would definitely come back to work there for another summer or something if they would have me back.

I recently discovered that I have a baking talent. I have made a devil's food cake, dulce de leche cake, double chocolate chip cookies, a jello cake, lava cakes, and a caramel cake and pound cake is next on the list. I actually enjoy baking a lot, but I probably won't have the time later on. But along with baking comes great responsibility--working out. I had to really make a commitment to staying in shape so I've been focusing on developing my body with solely body weight exercises. The amount of push up and squat variations that one can do is amazing so I'll do those until I start hitting the gym later.

Basically, this summer has been a lot of watching Angel, writing the book (I think I'm almost halfway there), trying to catch up with friends, cooking, the internship, devotional time with God and working on my relationship with Him, and focusing on getting back into shape. Usually, I'm so exhausted that there is no time to really post things, but now that things have more or less settled down, I am a little more free.

Oh, there was one other thing that has recently happened in the news and I only want to devote minimal time to it because it's really not life-changing in my opinion. Everyone is up in arms because of the way Lebron James left Cleveland and went to the Miami Heat. My opinion is that he gave them 7 years and it was his choice to leave. People do get traded or moved around all the time. However, I do believe that he could have done it another way, even if he did give the money he earned from all of those tv telecasts and special programs to charity, that was still dragged out far too long and probably the reason why people are upset. Ok, sports time over ;)

Immortality Paradox

What I'm Listening To: Forever Young- Jay-Z

Made tamales this weekend for my aunt and they were HUGE. The unfortunate part is that I only made 24 and they were gone super quickly, so I'm going to make more next weekend because this weekend is my birthday weekend. Today is Memorial Day and tomorrow is my first day at my internship. I'm excited to be in bizcas (business/casual) for the rest of the summer and learn some awesome stuff. I started writing again (YES) and didn't realize how much of the new book that I actually wrote during the school year. Today I'm going to try and write the whole sixth chapter as well as continue my Buffy/Angel marathon (two words: David Boreanaz). I'm beyond happy that David Boreanaz got Angel as his show after he left Buffy and that it's really interesting to watch the shows as I'm doing now, alternating episodes of both, because sometimes they intersect and characters from one show go onto the other show. It's fascinating.

I had a post about paranormal romances and since my new book is going to be a paranormal romance between a faerie and an elf, I decided to divulge my thoughts on immortality (I'm practically on the fifth season of Buffy and  something that the almost indestructible demanoid said struck me as profound). Why are people infatuated with the concept of immortality? Do you really want to live forever and what would be the consequences of that choice?

Immortality is a paradox. When a being knows that they can live forever, it makes them that much more frightened of the possibility of death, even more so than mortals. Instead of being unstoppable or beyond death, their enemy has no shape or form; it is fear. Immortality is a fragile thing once achieved because its permanence is unknown. The possibility of death becomes a nightmare as well as a dream; for those who cling to life too much and wish to be forever young or those who seek escape into the black abyss of death. Immortal creatures become afraid of life because in essence, they do not live. to live is to eventually die, and in that sense dying is a part of living. We are born knowing the limit of our mortality and that eventually we will be no more. It's almost our purpose to die so that new life can come and the circle of life can go on. It's like an actor who stays on stage too long because they want more of the limelight. Immortals are afraid of mortality because in essence, they do not live, cannot live because they do not experience life with the freshness that mortals do and it becomes stale and monotonous.

Paranormal Romance

What I'm Listening To: Love Don't Cost A Thing-JLo


This is old news, but I had to blog about it anyway. So apparently Tyra is going to write a fiction novel called "Modelland" as well as Lo Bosworth, a girl from The Hills. It's called the Lo-Down. Creative I know. The latter is a book on dating.

The other reason that I've been slightly distant from the blog is because I've simply needed a break from everything. Literally everything. I've been holed up in my room watching marathons of House and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One thing that I've noticed about myself, in terms of the shows I choose to watch, is that I'm a huge fan of paranormal romance. For some reason, it just makes it that much more heightened and real because there's usually always a problem and danger. My favorite shows either have this type or romance or comedy because on the romance side, there's so much drama and then the other side is the comic relief that I desperately need afterwards. In the following, you will either know what I'm talking about or be almost completely lost, but bear with me as I'm only going to use three examples:

Exhibit A: Charmed (more specifically Cole and Phoebe)
Cole was a demon and Phoebe was a witch. Witches fight and kill demons so there was already drama right there. Cole was only supposed to manipulate her so that he could kill she and her sisters, but then he fell in love and turned good. Then the Source infected Cole and he became completely evil, but Phoebe thought he was still in love with her but he was only using her. She even found out that he was the Source and became his queen in the underworld. But eventually, he tried to usurp the world and kill her sisters, and she had to make a choice between him and her sisters and kills him with the other two sisters.

Exhibit B: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Buffy and Angel)
Oh, Buffy and Angel. This is classic: a vampire and a vampire slayer falling in love. What are the odds? Clearly he was bad before, now he's trying to atone for his sins, then after they make love, POOF he goes bad again because he loses his soul. He commits a few murders, basically acts like a world class jerk. This is rather human/juvenile behavior, not necessarily "I'm an evil vampire who's lived for over 200 years" behavior. Here's what I don't get/am opposed to: he's bad, but he's still clearly obsessed with her and reverts to basically stalker tricks. Then FINALLY, Buffy's friend Willow is able to curse him again with a soul, but the last thing he did while he was still bad vamp was awaken a demon who will swallow the world into hell and all the humans with it. The way he could awaken it was with his blood and Buffy learns that the only way they could defeat the demon Acathla was with Angel's blood as well. So literally a minute before the demon awakens, Angel has his soul back, there's a tearful reunion and some kissing, and then the world starts to go to hell. Buffy doesn't have a choice (well she does, but it's rather obvious what she has to do), so she tells Angel to close his eyes and then stabs him through with a sword and he goes to hell along with the demon. That was so brutal to watch (but then in the next season they resurrect him, but then he leaves later in the season and there's more angsty stuff)

Appendix a: The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Arwen and Aragorn)
This is not a show, but it's three movies that I simply adore. This is the most amazing, pure relationship that I've ever seen. An elf and a mortal in a relationship. Elves live forever and mortals die, so clearly that's a problem. Arwen gives up her mortality for Aragorn and waits for him through the years as he's on his quest, refusing to go away to the undying lands with her people, and not knowing if Aragorn has remarried because he thought that she did go. Aragorn drew strength from Arwen's memory and stayed true to her (even though there was that pesky Eowyn who we all had to feel sorry for) and they eventually met again and married. It makes me want a little Evenstar necklace of my own (I am such a LOTR geek).

Appendix b: Alias (Vaughn and Sydney)
This isn't paranormal, but it was so UNBELIEVABLY ANGST filled that I had to include it. The abridged version of all of the painful, but delicious seasons: The appeal of this show is that it's so filled with secrets, betrayal, espionage, and world travel, plus wigs and costumes that it was almost paranormal for me. Sydney is a secret agent for SD-6, an agency that she once thought was the CIA (before they murdered her fiancee). Then she goes to work for the real CIA and Vaughn is assigned to be her handler. He clearly cannot stay professional with her and begins to care for her. Sydney reciprocates those feelings and then we're hit with a bombshell: he has a girlfriend (tangent: I LOVED Michael Vartan playing Vaughn in this show, but Vaughn was SUCH a complete tool). Then finally he breaks up with the girlfriend and he and Sydney begin to go out. Everything is fabulous, and then suddenly, Sydney basically goes into a coma for two years, but everyone else thinks she's dead and Sydney thinks that only a day has passed. So then they send Vaughn over and he happens to be married (all right, if the love of your life died, personally, I think it would take longer than two years for you to get over them and marry someone else). This is where the uber angst factor comes in and Sydney now has to work with Vaughn and his wife Lauren in the CIA. The kicker is that Lauren is a spy sent to get CIA secrets from Vaughn by marrying him. Vaughn and Sydney eventually figure this out and then as Lauren is about to kill Sydney, Vaughn kills her. So now we're back to the happy time and Sydney and Vaughn start dating again for about a season. He asks her to marry him, she's pregnant with his child, everything is good, and then they're going on the vacation that they never got to take, and a car runs into them. Apparently Vaughn works for a another agency so that he can try to find his father, and they off him. (I can't believe they killed the eye candy off of the show. That's probably the reason why I have yet to watch the rest of the 5th season, besides the fact that they got rid of a lot of people.) I think he eventually comes back and guest stars, but it still made me mad. That ranks as the most angsty relationship EVER.

So if you like drama and angst or heightened emotional feelings, feel free to check out a couple of these shows.