Thursday, October 28, 2010

"Sweep the leg"

I have rediscovered the Karate Kid. The original from 1984, not the new one with Will Smith's kid. The original with Mr. Miyagi, Daniel-san, wax on wax off! I have fallen in love with this movie. I'm pretty sure I loved this movie once before in my life, but now that I'm older I appreciate it so much more. Give me Daniel LaRusso, bonsais, the Cobra Kai, and the all awesome crane kick any day over Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan (no hate, promise).


Sunday, October 24, 2010

The smell of napalm in the morning...

So last night Amanda and I went to see Pittsburgh Ballet Theater's production of The Three Musketeers.

It was so much fun. It was cute, funny, beautiful ballet. It had great costumes and gorgeous sets, as well as awesome dancers. Since this is based on the book, there were lots of male dancers. It was really nice to see the male dancers show off for a change. Don't get me wrong, I love the female dancers with all their graceful moves, but you normally see the men partner them. So it was a nice change of pace to see the male dancers jump and turn and not partner. The lead in the production (who played young D'artagnan) was most excellent. I've seen this guy dance a number of times, and it always amazes me how high he can jump. He's just that awesome. I loved seeing him as Romeo and his wife as Juliette a few seasons ago. Seeing these things always make me want to dance. Maybe when I go home for break I'll hit up some ballet classes with my mom.


Besides that, I've begun my quest to finally finish AFI's Top 100 movies list. I've seen well over half of the movies, though some I've only seen parts of. For example, I'd seen most of Taxi Driver except for a good 30 minutes in the middle. So I decided to see that one again, just for good measure. That movie is just as good as I remember it being (even better with the plus 30 minutes I missed). A young Robert DeNiro and a really young Jodi Foster make a good movie.

The next movie that was on my list was Apocalypse Now. I'm not big into war movies just because I can't handle all the violence. This one had me hating mankind for the mere fact that I can't believe we can kill each other like that. Besides this overwhelming feeling of disgust, I did love the movie. It had so many layers, so many great scenes (Ride of the Valkyries, anyone?). Marlon Brando was amazing; and every time I looked at Martin Sheen all I could see was Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen. Those are some strong genes cause they all look alike. Though I liked the movie, I decided to not watch the Redux version. There is only so much violence I can take. The original version was long enough for me.

With all this procrastination done, it now dawns on me that I probably could have gotten some work done. I do have lab reports due, a prototype due, and some reading to do. But I feel like I deserved this little break. Besides, what's the weekend for if not relaxing a bit?

Saturday, October 23, 2010

3 Ninjas + 3 Musketeers = 1 Happy Me

So for once I don't have a ton of work to do. I already did half of my Spanish homework, my group and I did a significant amount of work on our prototype, and there isn't much else to do. Since I haven't had this much free time in a while I've decided to indulge by watching one of my favorite childhood movies: 3 Ninjas. Yes, that's right, I love Rocky, Colt, and Tum-tum. The best part about this is that its on Netflix Instant Play, so I don't even have to watch a sub-par version on youtube. This is going to be a nice relaxing day for me.

Later on I'm going to go see the Three Musketeers ballet with a friend. I've never seen it before, but it looks pretty good; plus the orchestra is playing so we all know that its gotta be good. Though I don't have my usual "cultural outings" partner with me, I will enjoy this to the max!

Sunday, October 17, 2010

DC in the Fall

I just came back from spending a few nice, relaxing, fun days in DC visiting my big brother, Andrew. Since the last time I saw him was during Christmas when I went to Japan, I was kind of excited to see him. Plus, it was nice to get out of Pittsburgh for a while.

I arrived Thursday night and left early this morning. Friday was spent perusing through some of the Smithsonian's--the American Indian Museum, the Museum of American History, and the Air and Space Museum. The American Indian Museum is the newest one, and it was definitely the smallest. It had some interesting exhibits about different tribes from the Americas (North and South)--things about their mythology and history, about modern, urban communities, as well as art and music by famous American Indians. Though small, it was very interesting.



Next up we had lunch in the sculpture garden. It was such a beautiful day--sunny, blue skies, and not too cold (warmer than Pittsburgh anyway). It was good times.

The American History Museum was packed with people, and it has a large collection of eclectic things, such as the 1st ladies' dresses, pop culture items, African-American art from the civil rights movement, Stradivarius violins, trains, an exhibit on America during war time, boats and pirates. I went a little picture crazy in there due to all the random stuff.



Last, but not least, was the Air and Space Museum. We were kind of dying from all of the walking and standing and reading we had been doing, so we spent a bit less time in that museum. This was slightly upsetting because I love reading about all the different planes and space ships and such (yes, I am an engineer, so I wanted to get my nerd on!). However, we did see some pretty cool stuff, like the history of telescopes, how they discovered the universe was expanding, planes from WWI and WWII, planes on aircraft carriers, space missiles and shuttles, and lunar landing stuff. Twas awesome.

We then made our way back to Andrew's neighborhood and ate a Pho Place. What is pho? I wasn't sure myself at the time. But it is apparently Vietnamese noodle soup. It was delicious, though I have no idea what kind of meat I had in there (hopefully nothing too weird).

Saturday was a much more chill day. We had brunch at some pretty hipster place. There were some interesting choices for brunch such as shrimp n' grits, or what Andrew had chicken and waffles!!!! FRIED CHICKEN ON A BELGIUM WAFFLE. With berries and syrup. Wtf. is. that. shit. I don't even know! It was crazy.

We then headed to the Library of Congress. The largest library in the world, holding a copy of all books published in English, it is definitely one of the most beautiful buildings as well. The interior is amazing, especially the rotunda where people sit to do research. I wish I had a library like it; I would be using it all the time!



Afterward, we did some some walking around, relaxing and chilling. We met up with some of Andrew's friends from back in the day when he was a young undergrad, and had some awesome food and some good drinks. It was a good time. It made me sad to come back to Pittsburgh with a mountain of homework awaiting me. I can't wait until I have a job that pays me, and no homework to do on Sunday afternoons.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Rant

In the Spanish class I am currently taking, we are supposed to peer evaluate the essay of our partner. My partner apparently skipped a few levels in Spanish and missed some fundamental grammar rules. It is driving me crazy. As a native speaker, I feel like she is butchering the language a bit. It frustrates me when you just put something into a translator, and then copy and paste it. I can tell when you are using English sayings, because 1) it sounds stupid and 2) the syntax is awkward. Por Dios, aprende usar la palabar matada! Matada no significa death! MIERDA!

Monday, October 11, 2010

Job Hunting...

I know what some might be thinking: why keep looking for a job when you already have a decent job offer with a good company that isn't half bad to work at?

Well, I'm not convinced I want to live in the burgh for the rest of my life, or work at a place where cell phones and ipods or prohibited, as well as internet use.

For the past month or so I have been job hunting whenever I have a free moment. It is a bit of a hassle. The whole idea of trying to launch a career out of nothing is a bit unnerving. I spend hours online looking at job descriptions, writing cover letters, and updating my excel spread sheet that the effort seems useless. I have applied to so many jobs that I have forgotten where I have applied to and where I still need to apply to. And the worst thing is, I only have one interview so far. Its with a company that does great things, lots of things, all over the world. However, because I applied to a leadership development program for new graduates I fear that the competition is going to be so big that I won't get to the next round of interviews.

When I was a senior in high school I was worried I would be a major failure and not get accepted into any decent university. Four years later, I will not feel like a major failure if no one else offers me a job.