Sunday 28 March 2010

Dear Friends

Yes, it's been a shocking (and, frankly, shameful) amount of time since I last - or at least regularly - updated, and I'm honest-to-blog sorry I haven't written in a super long time. It's not that I haven't wanted to blog - and I feel so out of the loop, I miss you all and everything you've been up to - but a combination of being flat out during N and O week/s (the former being the lead-up to the latter, that being the orientation to college - due to very unexpected circumstances, I become O week coordinator!!) and the subsequent two week recovery plus organising the ball, juggling subjects (nice of my class to let me know it wouldn't be running til second semester at the end of the first week!!), job-begging,* fresher-bonding, twenty firsts, general college partying plus "studying" has led to a fairly stressed-out, maxed-out JAG.

Not only that, but this is probably the first time in (almost!!) 3 years of blogging that I haven't felt the urge to blog about anything in particular. Y'all know I'm quite opinionated, passionate and enthusiastic about current events, rights, films, cute boys and my life in general, but I seem to be suffering from cyber-apathy - that is, I don't seem to care about blogging anymore. I'm sure this is just a rut, and probably stems from tiredness - in the last week, I went out on Thursday and Friday night to parties, Saturday night for dinner with a dear friend, have gotten up early three mornings for softball and only went to bed in the pm once (Wednesday night, I was so proud), stayed up to a ridiculous hour watching the Oscars, and been stressed about booking a ball venue (since our first two preferences are booked on the day we want).

A quick word on the Oscars: I completely agree with Best Picture and Best Director. Not so sure about Best Actress - happy for Sandra Bullock, her recognition was well deserved but having seen the Blind Side I'm not sure she should have won over Meryl Streep. It was too much to hope that Gabourey Sidibe might win for her emotionally devastating performance in Precious. I desperately want to see An Education, but missed it when it came out. I just saw Crazy Heart over the weekend, which is a touching movie although somewhat hard to believe, and Jeff Bridges gives a heart-achingly tender performance. Best Supporting Actor and Actress both spot on the money, but I have to say I didn't enjoy the hosting as much as year, and that's not just because last year's was a spunk and an Aussie to boot. Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were funny, but Hugh's dance numbers and musical theatricality were much more entertaining.

Brief movie-related aside: I watched Ponyo On the Cliff (the Japanese version, with subtitles) over the holidays and absolutely fell in love with it. It is one of my top five favourite films for last year, and one of the most adorable animations I've seen in a long time; I highly recommend it!
















New TV show obsessions include Entourage, which is hilarious and features the undeniably cute Adrian Grenier.



















A more recent occupation has begun with The Big Bang Theory, which is the most adorkable thing in the world. Don't let the name throw you off - it's a sweet, uproarious comedy about a group of friends who are all super-nerds, and how they interact socially, fall in love, live with each other, live with their mothers, and so on.

And, yes, I've become something of a massive gleek. I've been introducing my friends to it (just another excuse to watch it - again!) and found I can nearly quote it (I'm so proud. The only other show I can do this with is Gossip Girl, and there are just way too many bitchy one-liners on that show to be able to remember!)
















Americans might be able to help me out here with a better definition of what a glee club exactly is, but it seems to be a performing choir who sing (mostly) show tunes and compete with other schools. The show follows the twelve who join/are coerced/persuaded to join the club, with disastrous effects on their social status, love lives, study, ambitions, etc. It deals with all the teenage angst (serious and otherwise) associated with being gay, pregnant, in love, taking drugs, crushes on teachers, broken homes, being cool and passing classes. Jane Lynch is an absolute gem in this show, with cameos from Josh Groban, Stephen Tobolowsky and Kristen Chenoweth (yes, of the lovely Pushing Daisies, who, as it turns out, has a hell of a set of pipes on her!), and the whole of the Glee club cast are beautiful, talented, and just too cute; you'll end up loving all of them (yes, even Puck the jerk. Have you SEEN his Sweet Caroline solo? But Rachel will always have a special place in my heart...) The whole show is a fun musical that will never cease to make you smile.
















It's coming back to American TV on April 13, which hopefully means it will be on Aussie screens not long after that!!!
















O week was a huge success. The freshers are all really lovely, and so easy to just hang out with. For a little while after I got accepted as an O week leader last year, I felt a bit selfish - I mean, I'd done it once before, so why should I get to do it again? But it was lucky I did, because after the coordinator had to pull out, I was the only leader with any previous O week experience. And it remains the best way to get to know the freshers, and I'm so glad I did it. I thought it might not measure up to last year, but I had a blast,** and I know I'm going to make some quite close friends.

x
JAG

*Job-begging - my own term, reflecting my desperation in trying to get a job, any job at all to save up for next year!!
**Coffee Chocolate crawl was, once again, amazing, and there was an unexpectedly big response from the freshers - almost half of them came!!

3 comments:

Tina Nandi said...

Gleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! :)

Sharanya said...

I miss you. I do hope you will write more! But I guess it HAS been busy, hasn't it? Am putting off watching Glee for after the finals, seriously, I can do with fewer distractions! :(

Sunday said...

Did you know that Kristen Chenoweth actually played Glinda in Wicked on Broadway? Hells yeah she can sing!