2004-01-12
fall of noldor

1:07 p.m.

However, one very bright point so far was watching Pride and Prejudice with Kelly last night. She had never seen it, and when Elizabeth (Jennifer Ehle) first came on, she was really disappointed, because that's not how she pictured Elizabeth, but I assured her that she really grows on you, and Kelly had to admit that she did. When I first saw the movie, I didn't think she was really all that pretty, but by the end I certainly did and couldn't imagine her looking any other way. Same with Mr. Darcy; I don't think that Colin Firth looks like Mr. Darcy, but he's definitely Mr. Darcy when he's playing him. If that makes any sense. I love this movie. It always makes me feel better, and I never get tired of watching it. It certainly doesn't feel like a 5.5-hour movie.

I write about Mr. Darcy, and Will writes about school. Sometimes, I really can be such a girl.

I finished reading The Girl with One Pearl Earring and now really want to see the movie. Of course, the fact that Mr. Dar-I mean, Colin Firth is in it has nothing to do with it. ;) Yeah, I know y'all really believe that!

I also read The Silmarillion over the break. That's the back history of The Lord of the Rings. I'd heard that it was rather dry, and it was, but once I got into it, then it was good. The difficult part was trying to keep track of everyone and their names and history, like remembering that it was Finarfin son of Fanw� who sacrificed his life for Beren, and Fingolfin, Finarfin's elder brother, who was killed in single combat with Morgoth, also known as Melkor, the powerful Ainur who turned evil. See what I mean? However, it did explain a lot (like Aragorn's ancestry) and was really interesting. But, warning, it's not for the faint-hearted; there's over 300 pages of this stuff, and while Elrond, Galadrial, Sauron, and a couple of other known names are scattered in there, it's not until the last 20 pages that the Third Age (when The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place) is discussed.

Also, in my quest of reading classics, I finished The Hunchback of Notre Dame and it was pretty good. I was suprised to find that the Disney movie didn't stray too far from the book, but of course, the ending was happier in the movie.

Lord of the Rings and Pride and Prejuidice. I'm a dork and a girl. Plus, I'm sure that you don't care about the books that I read. Right.

So, in school, we've certainly jumped right into it. We're now divided up into two streams: Technical and non-Technical. Even thought I know less about the non-technical stuff (like, business, management, etc.), I still chose technical because I think it's more applicable to what I'm doing at NASA. So, for the first two weeks it's remote sensing and not much else. Despite having participated in Kidsat/EarthKAM, which is sort of remote sensing in that it takes pictures of the Earth, I'm really not that interested. Although, we did learn how to process images and that was kinda cool. We'll see how it gets along.

On Thursday we had girl's night with Krista, Nick's fianc�e; she and her parents are visiting. It was great. We had a lot of fun. We had planned to watch Save the Last Dance but ended up talking all night and never got around to it. Girls rock. Yeah, that's right, I am a GIRL.

Didn't do much else this weekend other than sleep. Sort of. Saturday and Sunday night I didn't sleep very well, so today I'm quite tired. Saturday night I went out with most of my class to The Irish Times, which is where several of our fellow classmates are now working (Beth, Brooke, and Kelly). Bavs had a friend visiting, Paul (v. cute, by the way), and brought him out with us. That was fun, but I really appreciate the fact that California has a no-smoking law in bars and restaurants because it's awful. Brooke said that she washed her hair three times and still didn't get the smell completely out.

So, a little bit more about the cruise before I have to go to class.

I pretty much took care of Christmas; there isn't much more to tell. Becca's family is awesome. They even gave me presents and a stocking, which I was definitely NOT expecting. Becca's mom asked what I liked, and Becca told her victorian novels, so they gave me an anthology of the Bront� sisters, as well as separate (v. nice!) volumes of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. So, not only am I building up a collection of classics, but they are very nicely-bound classics, too.

Morning of the 26th, Becca dropped me off at my parents' hotel and got to meet my family and showed them the pictures that she'd given me of Bennet, including the one of him with Santa. (I did NOT ask her to do that, by the way!)

We headed over to the terminal, dropped our stuff off before heading to the mall for some last-minute necessities (I'd completely forgotton to pack sandals, and I was going on a cruise! Doh!). We left port around 5 PM and headed out. The following day was a sea day. There were several of those. We hung out, explored the ship, exercised a little, watched as we passed Cuba, and caught up with the rest of our family members - there were 16 of us: me, my brother (Jesse), three sisters (Katie, Shelby, Sari), Shelby's boyfriend (Marcus), my parents (Barbara and Cary), Barbara's ex-husband (Jack), his wife and son (Kellie and Wyatt), Barbara's cousins (Gary and Bern), their son and his girlfriend (James and Courtney), and their mom (Jane), whose 80th birthday was the reason for the trip.

Okay, class is about to start. I'll write more later.

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