I love My Bucky

What I'm Listening To: Teach Me How to Bucky-Zooniversity

DISCLAIMER: This will be a very short but biased blog post.

Amidst the mass parade of midterms and midterm papers that I have to write, I felt as though I needed to take a moment and digress from all of the Homecoming pride from this weekend (which I did not partake of because I wouldn't have seen my family from now until kingdom come). Basically, I love my college mascot. Bucky. He just reeks awesomeness, so much so that there is an entire documentary dedicated to how much effort and pride goes into being a Bucky. I've almost been at UW-Madison for three years and had been dying to get a picture with him, but our paths never crossed. Until this year.

There are multiple pictures of this love fest, but I decided to spare you from my obsession. This year, our Bucky showed his stuff in not one, but two music videos in which he dances. Very well in the short one may I add. I was also surprised at the video quality of the full length music video, but it turned out to be very good. Some people commented about the lack of diversity in the video, but technically the original version (Teach Me How to Dougie) is one sided as well so I say just enjoy it for what it is. It wasn't meant to be representative, just funny.Click here for the short version and here for the longer version, which are completely different from each other. Seriously watch at least one.

All right now that you've been bedazzled by our Bucky badger, you have to give him some brownie points. If not, well I did tell you that this was going to be a biased post. He has completely bewitched me and I am completely all right with that because it only fuels the notion that I will always have that Badger pride. On Wisconsin!

And now hopefully some of that Badger pride/energy will spill over into my midterm line-up through this week/next week...

March Madness!

What I'm Listening To: Knock On Wood-Eddie Floyd

Before I say anything, I just want to wish everyone a happy belated St. Patrick's Day. I represented my Irish side of the family with a sparkling swash of green, and it was amazing to see people out in green everywhere. I sometimes think that people don't really wear it, especially the more darker green because they don't want to walk around looking like grass all the time. Speaking of grass, the snow has finally melted and it has actually been hot up here, which is saying a lot for Wisconsin. It was 55 degrees and people were out in their shorts and flip flops, which I think is doing too much, but whatever. Yesterday I saw my first bikini. Usually, crazy people congregate out on Bascom Hill or in front of the Kohl Center and sunbathe. Literally. They have towels and lay out in bathing suits, which I think is ridiculous especially because we are no where near a beach or sand except for the sand that they used to melt the snow this winter (which didn't). So girls are just randomly outside in bikinis which is uncomfortable for our male population (or the day they've been waiting for the whole year) and for prospective students walking around. It's not that hard to leave some of your clothes out. If we were in Miami in a beach, I wouldn't be as adamant, but since we're actually in residential areas, it's unacceptable. End rant...

Anyway, it's that fateful time of year again! People at work, people in council and all of my friends are asking  for my March Madness brackets. I'm not even close to filling mine out and they're due tomorrow. Somebody lend a hand... I most likely won't be able to watch that much anyway because of the book and other random things that prevent me from watching a lot of TV. But I'll follow vicariously through other people and hopefully be able to catch a few games. What are your fantasy teams or brackets? Enlighten me!

On another note, MIDTERMS ARE FINALLY OVER! Yes! This weekend is going to be good because hopefully I can sleep. I was studying with my friend Kylie for our Spanish midterm and I was literally falling asleep in the middle of my conversations with her, so stuff would come out random. Example, I was talking to her about La Malinche and then all of a sudden I would talk about how I had money in my Bible and how this was a good thing for the community because I would be able to help them out. I don't actually have/keep money in my Bible and I swear I ripped off a story from Chicken Soup from the Teenage Soul or something for that. Most of the time she would look at me and a lot of the time she would turn to her laptop until I woke up to what I was actually saying. Scary. This is why I need to stop going to bed at 2:30am and waking up at 7:45am everyday. Happy Thursday everyone and hopefully these blog posts will keep on coming!

Official Eclipse trailer is out TODAY

What I'm Listening To: PYT (Pretty Young Thing)-Michael Jackson

So the Eclipse trailer is out for all of the diehard Twilight series fans (I'm not diehard but enjoy the books, movies are another story....). There's also a really cool fanmade trailer that I almost thought was real except for the slightly bad quality and the fact that the person mashed together pieces from other movies and the Victoria in the Eclipse movie is different than the Victoria in the first two movies. I have to say, I will be seeing the movie just because I started watching them so I will therefore finish watching them. Although the switch from Rachelle Lefevre to Bryce Dallas Howard was a little weird, but that was known months ago. Have to say, from the little bit I saw, they do look a like in the trailer and it will be interesting to see if Summit can pull this off. I just hope that Bryce brings her A-game to the table when she acts and then I'll have no complaints.

Basically, the Eclipse trailer is out as preview for Robert Pattinson's (NOTE: that was the cutest picture of him I could find and it was playing Edward) new film Remember Me. All I'm saying, is that I'm going to see it for Pierce Brosnan (he's still got it!) and then I'll see if Pattinson's acting wins me over. I have to see if I haven't been giving him enough credit, although in the roles that I've seen him in (Harry Potter does not really count) he has the tendency to play a brooder. Really the only other film I've seen him in is Little Ashes where he plays Salvador Dali. I thought the movie was okay, but I didn't think he was the greatest thing since sliced bread. He's attractive (only in Twilight as Edward) and I feel that if he did his hair once in a while and put on clean clothes once in a while, he could be to me. But before this sounds like me bashing him, which really isn't my goal, I'll move on.   

Had my midterm today for Communicative Disorders. Think it went well, but usually when I think that, they don't....so I won't jinx it. Plus, this is what I want to study, so I want to maintain a positive outlook, especially if things don't go as planned. Still waiting to hear back from BOA Editions about the poetry book, and ABNA results come in again next week to see who is still in the running for the prize. I just finished a ton of Study Abroad stuff and I'm following up with that and trying to plan to go somewhere every month in Europe. Some ideas tossed around were Octoberfest in Germany, Amsterdam, Paris for NYE, Ireland for St. Patrick's Day, Morocco, Egypt, London, and New Zealand. I honestly can't wait. Any ideas on where I should go?

Midterms & Nicholas Sparks

What I'm Listening To: Proud Mary-Tina Turner and Ike

I feel at peace, except for the throbbing in my calves. I did a stair workout the other day, combined with a strengthening workout for my calves and a 5 min ab workout thrown in. Boy, did I feel refreshed. I have missed being as physically active as I was in the past.

Midterms are still raging. This week into the next is my hell week. I have a midterm for my ComDis 240 class on Thursday, two on Monday; one for Spanish 223 and the other for AOS 100, and then my next exam is Wednesday for Philosophy 210. I will need on the strength I can muster to get into next week. Everything is looking up now that I got accepted to Spain, and everything is falling into place. Even the most trivial, such as my hair. If you, woman or man, are ever worried about hair growth or loss, get Beauty4Ashes and I guarantee you that you will see a difference. It is working wonders for my hair and is making me wonder whether I am going to get kinky twists or not when I go to Spain.

So when I'm taking a break from midterms, I am writing. I am now at a little over 10,000 words, basically the first two chapters, but I am trying to concentrate on midterms these next two weeks so not a whole bunch of writing will get done. And then spring break! I'm so excited to go on spring break that I can barely contain myself, mainly because I have never really gone anywhere for spring break and this year I am going to Daytona beach with a couple of people. The poetry contest is supposed to be announced this month and the next phase of the ABNA awards is next week as well. Keep wishing me luck! I had to do some more research for the worlds, especially Vanheimr because I had to know what I wanted in order to draw it. I am no Tolkien, but I do believe that my little worlds look fabulous. Norse mythology is amazing, I wish they had more books based on it, but at least my new one can be a modern interpretation of it.

Minor detail: my phone broke so I'm using my old phone (going back to the good old Pantech Matrix) and going in between that and my HTC Touch so that I'm still able to talk to people. It could be worse, but because I'm not on Facebook and can't really use my phone, the only options left are email and twitter.

Another minor detail, so my co-worker Joanna and I were having a conversation about Nicholas Sparks and his books/movies. I loved A Walk to Remember and The Notebook as movies (I've only read A Walk to Remember), but we noticed a disturbing pattern. Basically all of his books have someone tragically in love and then someone has a terminal disease and dies or something. And I'm no expert on this, especially because I haven't been published yet, but I almost wish he would write something different, maybe a story about someone who had an amazing love story with a normal life without the audience feeling sorry for them because they had a disease--something different. I mean, he's the master at that and he'll probably keep doing it because he makes money at it and that's all he's really known for, but I'm tired of seeing his books being made into movies because 1) I feel like they aren't accurate to his books anyway and 2) It's the same old story and he really tells it the same old way (formula: terminal disease, someone falls in love and someone leaves or dies). Think about it, I'm only going to reference a few: The Notebook=Alzheimer's and old age, A Walk to Remember= Leukemia, Dear John =autism, Last Song =stomach cancer, Message in a Bottle (he died trying to save someone from drowning, but you get the picture). But people will keep buying the books and watching the movies (I probably will torture myself and see Last Song, ONLY to see if it's any different, but it just sounds painfully the same).

And another thing, the fact that he Miley Cyrus said jump and he basically said how high made me sad. The writing process for this script was basically that she wanted a film to break out of her kiddie roles and said she wanted to do something like A Walk to Remember because that helped Mandy Moore. So Disney made a few calls and he wrote up a screenplay (before the book mind you) and then SHE and her family agreed and approved it and there you have Last Song. I'm waiting to see how good this acting will be and I don't know if I agree with how that was done, that scares me, but whatever, that's basically how rich people exercising their money get what they want. That's just my opinion though...