I'm Addicted to Wikipedia

So one day I was looking a movie up on wikipedia, I have an app on my iphone so that I can use wikipedia at any and all times, and I realized that it told the entire plot of the movie. It not only included major summary points but also points of interest and controversy. It wasn't until later that I truly began to appreciate this feature (imdb.com, also a fave of mine, doesn't include plot spoilers), when I was watching a movie on tv and decided that if things weren't going to work out the way I thought they should then it was going to be a complete waste of my valuable time to finish it. So I wikipedia-ed the movie and found out that not only were things not going to work out the way that I wanted them to, the plot was going to get extremely cheesy towards the end. If there is one thing I can't stand, it's cheesiness. So I didn't finish the movie, but was glad that I knew what happened; I've never liked not seeing movies and books through to the end, I'm always afraid of what I'll be missing. Since that fateful day I have become obsessed with wikipedia. I wikipedia everything: movies, books, actors, actresses, music, etc. Sometimes it does let me down on newer movies or books and won't yet have entire plot summaries, but I'm far more willing to give more recent movies and books a chance so it's not too big of a let down. It's when you're watching the weird and or unheard of movies on AMC or even lifetime that it's better to look it up before wasting valuable time. I also tend to get very emotionally invested in the plots of movies and books. It takes a lot to make me cry in a movie but not a lot to put me in a seriously weird mood. I would much rather know what's going to happen going into a movie so that I can be prepared, rather than leave feeling like I just paid 9.50 to be totally depressed. A perfect example is the movie Brothers (starring Jake Gyllenhall, Natalie Portman, and Tobey Maguire). I went to go see it with Rebecca and Anna when it was in theatres (it totally should have been a rental). It was so not what I was expecting, or what the previews made it out to be. We sat in the theatre for a good 5-10 minutes after the movie ended to let everything sink in. Had I used wikipedia we could have gone to see something else and not wasted a couple hours of our time on the disappointment that was brothers.

Millenium Trilogy

I just finished the Millenium Trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest). I got a little bored with the second one, but I had a hard time putting all three down. Sadly the author, Stieg Larsson, died of a major heart attack shortly after delivering the three manuscripts. I defintiely wish there was going to be a fouth book. I'm really excited for them to finish casting the American version of the movie; I netflixed the Swedish versions but haven't had the chance to watch them yet. Daniel Craig is on board to play the lead role, definitely a solid choice. I'm hoping they'll pick Ellen Page for Lisbeth Salander, I think she would be perfect.

Only in Louisville

My mom took me to vote in Tennessee's republican primary the other day since I was new to voting in Louisville and wasn't sure where to go. Voting was at the fire department, or rather where the new fire department is being built, and was set up in what appeared to be a barn. Awesome. As we were leaving we saw a man pull up on his lawn mower to vote. Only in Louisville would someone take their lawn mower on the road. Upon my mentioning something about said man, my mother informed me that when she and my dad had voted during early voting someone had driven a tractor. Even better.

grindface.com

These sweet photos and their comments are courtesy of www.grindface.com. The last one totally slams Alabama and there are some serious grammar issues, so I obvi didn't come up with them. But those things aside, these are still pretty funny and soooo true.

As the girl on the right nonchalantly strolls by, these two are caught in the throes of ecstasy.

Grind fiends, turned on by the pulsating beats of early ninties rap need only one fix at a party… crotch-on-thigh grinds. C.O.T. grinds invariably lead to the two handed butt snare. Fact. But whats left to materialize is whether peter-pan-pant’s baby chest will induce a dance floor make-out. Things are heating up as this babe runs her hand through her hair, lets just hope she adequately prepared for the actual heat part though. Because if not, her grade on the armpit sniff test will be her only F of the night.

Grinding, everyone does it… just not this awkwardly. Like date Mike on the Office or having to watch a Victoria Secret commercial with your mom, there are few things more awkward than watching your 6-5 drunk friend try and two-way grind with some sober mexican girls.

Blame it on the alcohol. Say it was my birthday. Argue that its fine. Whatever your excuse, there’s no good way to justify dressing like a leopard princess… that is until you start grinding in the middle of the bar. Only a girl from Alabama finds herself navigating around barstools to find an open space to freak dance. Unfortunately for this jungle cat, this brodog doesn’t get the reasoning behind the name the Alabama Slammer. Stop holding your palms out like you are playing patty cake and go hand to hip like a normal creep because by dancing like that the only thing getting blown tonight is your chance.

Subway

So this past weekend I went camping with some friends. Before we started the drive to the mountains we stopped and got Subway. I love Subway. Let me rephrase that, I love Subway now. From the time I was in fifth grade to my freshman year in college, I refused to eat it. That's right, I went eight years avoiding Subway and forcing my family to provide me with an alternative whenever they ordered it. At some point when I was in fifth grade I acquired a serious phobia of latex gloves. Although this phobia extended to other places, I most strongly associated it with Subway. I think that was because the Subway near where we lived was really gross. Who knows though. Anyways, I had worn latex gloves before and hated the powder they left on my hands as well as the way they smelled. At some point I started to swear that I could taste the powder from the gloves on my food, more specifically on my Subway sandwiches. I know it sounds crazy now, but when I was eleven I was totally convinced. So I refused to eat at Subway, obviously, or at any other deli style place where I could see them contaminating my food with latex gloves. I would literally make myself sick to my stomach thinking about how my food was going to smell and taste of latex gloves. It was always weird when I was out with friends and had to explain why I didn't want to eat Subway. I usually made up a good excuse; few people knew my real reason for not wanting to eat there. It was also a pain to beg my parents to bring me something else whenever they were bringing Subway home. They eventually began to treat my dislike of Subway like an allergy, it was rare that anyone in my family ate it when I was around. By the time I was in high school I was frequenting Quiznos, and didn't mind their use of gloves when preparing my food. I still wouldn't eat at Subway though. In fact my phobia had practically disappeared, except for the fact that I couldn't overcome eating at Subway. It wasn't until the summer after my freshman year when I was staying with my friend Sally in Huntsville that I finally gave it another chance. We were meeting her parents for lunch at Subway, and not wanting to seem impolite I didn't mention the fact that I hated eating there. I nerviously watched them prepare my sandwhich, they seemed to be using different gloves, latex free gloves even. But I was still dreading having to eat it. I sucked it up and ate my first Subway sandwich since I was eleven. It was amazing, even better than Quiznos. I have loved Subway ever since. Luckily after my freshman year of college my parents moved near a much nicer and much cleaner Subway. I eat there all the time. I'll never know why my phobia of latex gloves stemmed from Subway or how I managed to go eight years without eating it.

Tymese

Tymese is probably my most favorite student ever (so far at least). She was a short black girl and wore her hair in a poof, if you will, on top of her head every single day. I knew I was in good the day she stayed late after school to give me a lesson in rap. Her fave rapper is Gucci, and her fave song by him is Lemonade. I also knew I was in good when she started playing with my hair. I always have black girls that are fascinated by my white girl hair, and since I love the feeling of someone playing with my hair, anyone that wants to gets a bump up on my cool list. Tymese played with my hair all the time, but every now and then she would get the idea in her head to twist my hair. She would take varying sized chunks of my hair and twist them as tight as possible, twisting is next in line to braiding in terms of popularity with black girls' hairstyles. Twisting hurt like hell. I don’t know how black girls do it. Some of my students talked about how they would be at the salon for 4 or 5 hours getting their hair braided or twisted… I would need some serious xanax to sit through that. Every time I winced in pain Tymese would laugh and say “all white girls are sooo tender headed, for real.”

Julia

Sorry it's been a decade since I last blogged. I did my student teaching internship this semester while taking classes leaving very little time for other things. I am now however ready to share this past semester's stories. I was in two different classrooms, so I'll start with the first one, fifth grade with Ms. Wyatt. On a side note I was placed at a school in the legit middle of nowhere. It was thirty minutes away from my house and all there is out there is a Dollar General. And the DG, as I affectionately refer to the Dollar General, def sells clothes. Fawesome. I really liked my teacher. She coached softball at the local high school, and I think coaching prob should be her full time job. She was ALWAYS on the phone dealing with softball related things. (Imagine if you will a thick accent similar to Reba McEntire, but more country) "Well one of my girls got caught buying beer underage last night at the damn Texaco, it was even caught on camera." She walked in with at least two softball related stories to share with me every morning, unless she was on the phone or doing something online (of course softball related). I mean thank goodness I was there to teach the kids. The kids were hilarious.

I'll start with Julia, one of my favorites. She's black, tall, really athletic, a huge tomboy, and has a huge mouth. After a few weeks there I was teaching math when I noticed Julia talking. So I told her to quit talking and pay attention to the lesson. She promptly responded with "Excuse me! Baby Girl I wasn't talkin." She referred to me as Baby Girl for the rest of the semester. I remember telling her if she didn't quit talking we were going to have a come to jesus meeting. Her response was, "Baby Girl, I already got Jesus. And I wadn't talkin." She always claimed she wasn't doing what I accused her of; luckily I soon learned the best way to get to her. Everytime she contiued doing something she wasn't supposed to, I threatened to move her away from her "husband." Julia's "husband" was the quiet white boy, Blake, that sat next to her. She always referred to him as her husband, even to his mom, who works in the cafeteria, and her coworkers. Whenever I threatened to move her desk away from him, she would respond with, "Baby Girl don't you dare take my husband away from me. That ain't even an option." Even though she still got sassy with me when I threatened to move her, she would at least close her big mouth long enough for me to finish the lesson for fear that I actually would split her and her husband up. My last week in Ms. Wyatt's class Julia pulled me aside for a "real real important convo." Apparently there was a sixth grader on her bus that she had the hots for. When I asked her what she was going to do about her husband, she said "What're you talkin about? He ain't going nowhere. He's my husband duh." She then proceeded to explain that she could shop around all she wanted, because she knows her hubby isn't goin anywhere. Luckily Blake considers Julia his best friend, it always cracked me up to see Julia running her mouth and yelling across the room sitting next to little quiet Blake. I really miss Julia and hearing her call me Baby Girl.